The Rampant Disease
by triedunture
Summary: Wilson comes back from vacation to find, holy crap, zombies have attacked! Warnings: mild HW slash, horror, gore, humor, character deaths!
1. Chapter 1

Wilson drove onto the university campus with a sigh. The short vacation to Maine to visit his parents had been pleasant, but the strain of putting on a happy face for his folks had taken its toll. His shoulders ached terribly and a headache wasn't far behind. The drive had been long, and he was tired.

Flashing blue lights distracted him for a moment. It looked like the police had set up some sort of checkpoint, maybe looking for drunk drivers? It was the weekend, and the college kids did sometimes get wild. Wilson slowed his car and reached for his wallet.

"Let him in," a gruff voice called to the uniformed officer standing at the barricade.

Wilson thought he saw a flash of white hair and heard the snap of nicotine gum. But the other man was already driving away in a police cruiser.

"Detective Tritter?" Wilson mumbled to himself, watching the other car speed away. Why would that man ever let him off easy for anything? "I'm probably just tired from all the driving," he assured himself. He shrugged and thanked the policeman who waved him through.

He rubbed at his eyes. For such a late afternoon, the parking lot sure was full. Finding a spot was difficult. But he'd driven straight to the hospital from the highway because he wanted to see House. They needed to talk.

He hadn't even spoken to him since leaving two weeks ago. Wilson had tried calling but…

He sighed and flipped his cell open to check the battery again.

…all of House's phones (cell, office, and home) just rang and rang.

"Is he avoiding me?" Wilson whispered to himself. He shook his head. No sense in sitting in the car alone.

Wilson pulled himself out of his car and approached the glass doors of the clinic. As he neared the entrance, his eyes narrowed and his head cocked to the side. It looked dark inside. Where were all the nurses? The clinic shouldn't be closed for another half hour.

Maybe it was a holiday he'd forgotten about. Arbor Day or President's Day or…

Wilson pushed open the glass doors and stepped into the unusually quiet clinic. Beyond the nurses' station, he could see Cuddy's office. The double doors were half open, but it looked like no one was in there.

"Hello?" Wilson called out, tugging at his tie. It seemed very warm in the hospital. Strange. The temperature was usually kept at a constant chill because of all the machinery. "Anyone still around?"

Wilson was about to open his cell and try House again, but his loafer slipped suddenly on the slick floor. He looked down, lifting his shoe to examine the offending substance. There was a dark red smear on the tile.

"Blood?" Wilson frowned, putting his phone back in his coat pocket. "No one bothered to clean it up?"

He glanced around the empty corridors. What was going on?

A moan emanated from exam room three. It was deep and guttural, the sound of someone in immense pain.

"I swear, if House just left someone in there and went home…" Wilson muttered to himself. Because of the heat, he shed his coat and left it on a waiting room chair before he walked over to the exam room. He was already formulating an elaborate apology in his mind when he opened the door.

The moan turned into a horrible screech, and a dark shape lunged towards the doorway. Wilson yelped and tumbled backwards to fall on the floor, hard. He winced as pain shot through his ankle. In the back of his mind, he diagnosed a bad sprain.

In the front of his mind, he was busy staring at the creature lurching towards him.

It was human, or had been. Now its flesh was mottled and hanging in bits, its bones poking through the skin at the elbows and knees. It was a male, late twenties, matted black hair and bloodstained teeth. A stained hospital gown, torn in places, was draped around its emaciated form.

It dropped a severed arm it had been chewing on and dragged itself towards Wilson in halting, pained steps. It cried out, reaching towards him, and the noise rang through the halls.

Wilson scrambled backwards until his back hit the wood paneling of the nurses' station. The thing was right on top of him. He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting a wave of nausea as the scent overpowered him.

He was going to throw up. And then he was going to die.

He almost missed Maine.

"Hey, buddy, pick on someone with your own rate of decay!" Wilson's eyes snapped open to see House, standing there with his cane raised like a baseball bat. No, not his cane, but a—

THWACK!

…Snow shovel.

Wilson watched in silence as the decapitated head rolled away, coming to rest against a potted fichus. The body crumpled to the ground like a puppet. There was no blood, just a dark ooze that smelled like rotting fruit.

"Wilson, are you trying to get yourself killed?" House hissed, his voice dropping to a low, whispery sound. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I was…in Maine. Vacation." Wilson swallowed and blinked once, his eyes still on the severed head. "I just got back."

"And the first item on your agenda was to come to the hospital on your last day off?" House chuckled and set the shovel on the counter of the nurses' station. "You goody two-shoe moron."

Wilson ran his eyes over his friend's form. House was dressed in his usual T-shirt and jeans with a blue button-up, except one of his shirtsleeves had been torn off, leaving his right arm mostly bare. His clothes were stained with sweat, like he hadn't changed in days. His eyes were bright and alert, but he was panting with exertion, and there was a small gash above his left eyebrow, scabbed over.

His blue backpack was secured over his shoulders, and out of this, House pulled his cane and leaned on it.

"Need a hand?" he finally asked, looking down at Wilson sitting on the floor.

"Tell me what that goddamned thing was," Wilson whispered, glancing back to the fallen body.

"Jimmy, come on." House grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him to his feet. "What's black, blue, and loves to eat brains? It's a zombie, you idiot."

While Wilson gaped like a fish out of water, House stuffed the shovel into his knapsack, metal end first. The stick stuck out of the zippered pouch, and the older doctor seemed pleased with this.

"How…when…did this…?" Wilson fumbled for words. "There's no such thing as zombies."

"You can tell them that when they start gnawing on your face," House said, surveying the darkened hallways with his quick eyes. "The others will have heard that blow. They'll be coming soon." He grabbed Wilson's wrist again with his free hand and pulled him along, limping down the hall at a breakneck pace. Out of the corner of his eye, Wilson saw a slow-moving swarm collect around the front door. No way out, then.

"Where are we going?" Wilson cried.

"The cafeteria. The walls are solid. That's where everyone's barricaded themselves." House paused for a moment, glancing at the handful of zombies behind them. The noise they made was deafening, a long, low whine of pain. House cursed under his breath and tugged harder at Wilson's wrist. "We need to move. Now."

Wilson gasped as they rounded a corner. Broken glass was scattered all over the floor, crunching under their shoes. They passed overturned gurneys, empty wheelchairs coated in blood, and IV stands tangled on the ground. "My foot…"

"Just little farther, I promise," House said, practically hauling Wilson down the pitch-black corridor. "Just get to the elevator."

Wilson had to grit his teeth to keep from shouting every time his left foot hit the ground. Sharp pain lanced up his leg, making him wonder how House, a man with only one working leg, could be moving so fast. Then he heard the low, collective moaning of the zombies. It seemed to be coming from all sides, echoing through the hallways like the groaning of ghosts.

"Tell me what the hell is going on," he demanded.

House stopped at a corner and peered around it cautiously before continuing. "Funny thing happened while you were gone, Wilson," he said. "The dead started walking."

"I was only out of town for two weeks!"

"The virus spread quickly. At least, I think it's a virus. Infection doesn't fit; we ruled out a few other things." House stopped short, pulled them both behind a vending machine, and motioned for Wilson to stay still. He switched his cane out for the shovel once again and hefted it in his hands. The moans of the zombies rose and fell suddenly, and the hospital halls were plunged into silence.

Wilson strained his ears until he heard the shuffling footsteps. A long shadow fell across the floor; something was coming from the left. Wilson stared as, slowly, the form of a woman came into view, her dress in tatters, her broken leg dragging behind her.

"Batter up," House said, swinging at her head as soon as she was in range. Wilson looked away just as the blow connected with a sickening crack. "You have to go for the head," House told him. "Otherwise they just keep coming at you."

Wilson choked back the bile in his throat; the smell was truly awful. "What virus?" he asked as House reached for the cane in his backpack again.

"Remember before you left for Maine, I was working on that woman with the weird auto-immune problem?"

"Yeah. Cuddy said you couldn't operate because of the risk of…"

"Cuddy's dead," House snapped, shoving his makeshift weapon into the bag over his shoulder.

Wilson blinked, leaning against the wall for support. "She's…what?"

"Dead." House yanked the zipper on his bag shut. "She locked herself in the neo-natal wing, trying to protect the kids. But the walls were all glass. They busted in, got to her."

"Is she one of them now?" Wilson asked, gazing at the decaying body at their feet.

"No. She would have been," House whispered with his eyes on the ground. "She asked me to finish the job." He looked up, his blue eyes blazing in the growing dark. "So I did."

"House…" Wilson reached out, grasping the worn fabric of House's shirt in his weak hand.

"Anyway," House sighed, letting Wilson cling to him, "patient zero died ten days ago. Turns out, not so much with the staying dead."

A long, low moan interrupted him. House's head swiveled towards the sound. "Let's go." They darted into the cargo elevator, usually reserved for the cleaning crews, and House produced a maintenance key from his pocket. "Found this on one of the bodies. Thank god, because I couldn't move between floors without it. The other elevators don't have power." He twisted it into the control panel, and the doors slammed shut. House pressed the button marked 9 and the elevator jolted into motion.

Wilson propped himself up in the corner and put a hand over his still-shocked mouth. "I tried calling you. Is the power...?"

"The building switched to emergency power a week ago. When the mob woke up in the morgue and ran out of tasty medical examiner flesh, they must've chewed through the building's wiring," House said, readying his shovel weapon once more in preparation for the hallway. "The phone lines went down too. I wanted to try you on my cell, but it's in my office, along with Cameron."

"Is she okay?"

House looked at him like he was dense. "She's peachy. And a zombie." He turned back around to face the front of the elevator. "Cameron refused to give up on the infected patients. Got herself bitten about a dozen times. When she turned, she was still at the white board. Now she won't leave the diagnostics department. Not even to get coffee."

Wilson lifted his leg to examine his swollen ankle. "You said the cafeteria's safe?"

"Yep." House frowned. "Except for Chase."

Wilson looked up. "What about Chase?"

"He's been bitten too," House said. "He might have another day before he turns. We're still working on a cure. If that doesn't pan out, he gets to ride down the elevator shaft without the elevator."

"My god," Wilson whispered.

"Try not to stare when you see him," House suggested. "He isn't looking his best."

Wilson gave a slightly hysterical laugh. "Not his best? Look at you, though. I've never seen you so invigorated. How much Vicodin did you manage to swipe from the pharmacy when things started going to hell in a hand basket?"

House leaned heavily on his cane. "Haven't had a pill in eight days, Jimmy." He turned to stare at his friend. "Fighting for survival seems to take my mind off things."

"No pills at all?" Wilson asked, his eyebrows high on his forehead.

House broke his gaze and looked up at the illuminated floor numbers. "We used most of them for the people with bites," he said. "Chase is down to half a tablet. If the organ failure doesn't kill him, the pain might."

"What about Foreman?" Wilson asked as the elevator doors dinged open.

"Oh, he's fine. Though I wouldn't count on him forever. You know how it goes. Black guy, horror movie." House made a face and stepped out into the hallway, unsteady on his bad leg. "He'll never make it."

Wilson had a million other questions, but before he could open his mouth, House was beating a zombie that had once been a small boy. The small, naked creature was screeching with every blow, not even raising an arm to defend itself. It just kept shuffling towards them.

"Don't let the little ones fool you," House shouted over the ringing noise the shovel made as it connected with the skull. "They'll bite your ankles like tiny dogs."

House managed to knock the zombie to the ground, where it drooled and moaned, reaching for him still. With cold efficiency, House placed the sharp end of the shovel on the creature's neck and leaned forward with all his weight, neatly separating the head from the neck with a crunch.

"How did you get so good at that?" Wilson asked, passing a hand over his sweat-covered brow.

House panted, his body shaking with adrenaline. "Are you kidding?" He smiled. "I've been waiting my whole life for this." He turned away from the body and pulled his cane out of his bag, twirling it between his fingers. He kept the shovel in his free hand and hurried down the dim hallway. "Follow close. Eyes open."

Wilson did as he was told, and they reached the shut double doors of the cafeteria without any more attacks, though the sound and the smell of zombies seemed to be everywhere. House tapped quietly against the doors. "Foreman, open up."

The young doctor must have been waiting right inside the doorway, because Wilson could hear the sound of furniture being moved and chains rattling. Finally, the door swung open.

"You get it?" Foreman asked, letting House inside.

"Yeah." House tossed his backpack to the man. "Morphine's in the front pocket, syringes are in the bottom, and Wilson's right behind me." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "Got some antibiotics for that girl, too. Make them last."

"Dr. Wilson?" Foreman's eyes went wide as the oncologist entered at a more sedate pace. "What are you doing here?"

Wilson opened his mouth, but House cut him off. "How about we have story time after we inject Chase?"

Foreman rolled his eyes, but took the supplies wordlessly and hurried away. Wilson took in the new, improved cafeteria/battle station.

House was busying himself with shoving the displaced café tables back against the locked door. The rest of the large room was a haphazard mess of overturned chairs, piles of blankets, and blood-soaked bandages. The salad bar was bare; the survivors must have eaten the fresh food first to save the canned for later, Wilson thought.

There were about a dozen more people in the old eating area. Some were sleeping, curled up on the floor in blankets they had taken from patients' rooms. Wilson recognized a nurse from pediatrics, a surgeon he'd never really spoken to, and a few others who must have been patients before the disease hit. A little girl was sleeping, connected to an IV drip that someone had hung on a coat stand.

It made sense to stay here, Wilson could see. They had a good supply of food and water. The walls were solid brick. There were bathrooms off to the right, and the doors were easily secured. The downside, of course, was that they were cornered. There were no windows in here, and no way to get to the roof. And even with the doors bolted shut, the faint noise of eerie moans could still be heard from the hallway.

Wilson wandered to the far back corner, where Chase was laid out on the seat of a booth. The table had been pulled out, creating a makeshift sickbay. Foreman was mainlining the morphine directly into Chase's spine. The Australian let loose a shout of pain, curling tightly into the fetal position.

"House couldn't find any local anesthetic while he was down there?" he cried bitterly.

Wilson stood there with his arms at his sides, his mouth open. Chase was trembling, his sweaty skin had taken a sickly green hue, and there were huge bruises all over his arms and neck. Wilson had seen corpses with a healthier glow.

Seeing Chase like this made the pain in his ankle feel more like a dull, guilty ache.

Foreman caught sight of him over his shoulder. "Help me hold him down, will you? He can't stop shaking." He turned back to Chase, his hands steady on the needle. "You won't feel a thing in a few seconds. Just breathe."

"Won't feel anything at all soon," Chase gasped. "I'll be dead. But not. Just like Cameron."

Wilson stepped forward and held the other man's head and side down on the hard seat.

Glazed blue eyes swiveled upwards to find Wilson's face. "Wilson? You're supposed to be gone. Am I…?"

"He's really here, Chase. Not a hallucination," Foreman soothed. He turned his gaze back to Wilson, quirking an eyebrow. "Guess you wanted to play hero. How the hell did you get in here, anyway?"

"I'd be interested in hearing that too," House's voice rumbled behind him. "We told the nice 911 lady to stop sending paramedics and policemen to feed the hungry masses. They were supposed to set up a perimeter and then get us out of here." He slammed his cane against a nearby tabletop, the loud sound making some of the sleepers jolt awake. "If they didn't fucking believe us, then Chase is going to die for nothing!"

Wilson looked down at the young doctor, who was nearly asleep with the morphine. "I made a run for my cell phone in the locker room," he explained, his voice a weak thread. "Dropped it when they bit my arm. But I got the call out."

"Yeah, and look where it got you," House seethed.

Wilson shook his head. "I think…there is a perimeter. But they let me in. I don't know why; I wasn't paying very much attention. I thought they were just pulling over drunk drivers." He ran a hand through his hair. "But I've been listening to the news on the radio all day. No talk of a mysterious disease crippling a hospital. And the guys outside were Princeton PD, not FBI or CDC."

"If you were the police, would you tell everyone about a zombie attack?" Foreman pointed out. "They're probably just waiting for everything to die down."

House limped over to the cafeteria wall, where several words were scrawled in his all-caps handwriting:

FEVER

BRUISING BLEEDING FROM?

LIVER FAILURE

BACTERIAL? (This was crossed out.)

TOTAL ORGAN FAILURE

TREMORS

BRAIN CANCER? (This was also crossed out.)

NO PULSE

NO BREATHING

NO FUCKING WAY

"They aren't waiting for things to die down," House said quietly. "They're waiting for things to die." He turned, his eyes shining in the dim light. "They aren't coming for us."


	2. Chapter 2

"Here you go, honey," Wilson said softly, tipping a cup of water to the little girl's mouth. "Take a big gulp, and then take these pills." He placed two small yellow tablets in the palm of her hand. The amber bottle in his hand produced a dull rattle when he shook it; with all the other people to treat, the antibiotics would only last a few more days.

She did as she was told, swallowing hard twice. "Thanks," she croaked, and lay back on her nest of blankets and sheets. Her stringy black hair hung in her face, and her cheeks were smudged with grime. "My name's Lindsey."

Wilson bit his lip and studied her flushed face. Without her chart, they couldn't even be sure they were treating her with the right medicine. And she was only seven or eight years old, too young to tell them what her diagnosis was.

"I'm Dr. Wilson. You're going to be fine," he said with a false smile. "Now get some rest, okay?" She nodded and closed her eyes.

Rolling his sleeves to his elbows, Wilson glanced around the ramshackle cafeteria. There were lots of other people who needed to be helped. Some were still sick with whatever affliction had brought them to the hospital in the first place. Others had been injured by broken glass and other debris. But without any medicine…

There was a sudden bang against the double doors followed by a long moan. Wilson jumped at the noise before reminding himself that the chains would hold. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves; he couldn't take much more of this.

"House." Wilson walked across the room to his friend, keeping his voice at a low whisper for fear of alarming the patients. "Some of these people will die if they don't get proper care soon. We can't stay in here forever." He tugged at his brown hair in frustration. "What are we going to do?"

"I'm thinking," House murmured. He was seated on the edge of the empty soup station, running his thumb over his bottom lip and staring off into the space in front of him.

Wilson winced and shifted his weight, trying to give his twisted ankle some reprieve. The movement drew House's disapproving glare.

"You need to get that wrapped," House said, indicating Wilson's foot with a light tap of his cane. "Let me get something for it."

"It's fine," Wilson sighed. House ignored him and hobbled off towards the soda fountain where he rooted around in a box of supplies on the counter. "We need to find a way out of here," Wilson insisted.

"Here's a fun fact," House quipped. He made his way back to Wilson with a roll of beige bandages in one hand. "I can think and wrap a sprained ankle at the same time! Years of medical training have finally paid off. Now sit down and take off your shoe."

Wilson acquiesced, sitting sideways on the hollow soup station. Taking the shoe off of his swollen foot required a little force, but he finally dropped the black loafer to the floor. House took a seat next to him, and Wilson propped his injured foot on House's good leg.

"Listen, I walked right through the front door," Wilson began again. "Why don't we make a run for it? Just get to the ground floor and run like hell."

"I'm going to tell you just one of the many flaws in that plan," House snorted. His tapered fingers worked quickly, winding the bandage up and around the arch of Wilson's foot and his ankle. "Coming in is a lot easier than going out. A big group of us leaving together? The horde will hear us coming a mile away." He cradled Wilson's calf in one hand, tightening the bandage as best he could. "And by the way, we're not the most mobile guys on the block. Running isn't an option, especially for some of these sitting ducks." He tipped his head towards the patients laid out on the floor.

Foreman, who had been checking the pulse of an old woman, caught sight of the two doctors talking and made his way over to them. "Got a plan yet?" he asked. "Because I think we need to find a phone and call the outside again."

"The cops are ignoring us," House pointed out. "No help there."

"What about calling a reporter? We call CNN, tell them what's going on, and they'll force the government to take action," Foreman argued.

"Yeah, sure," House hissed. "If you want to go down in some controlled carpet bombing, then by all means, let's involve the government." The older doctor rolled his eyes. "Don't you get it? A couple dozen lives." He gestured to the ragtag group of survivors. "Not worth the risk. We'll be dead by sunrise if it's up to Washington."

Wilson watched as House neatly tied off the bandage. "Besides," Wilson added, "we'd have to find a working phone first." He gave a humorless laugh. "In this day and age, I can't believe no one has a cell on them."

"Well, you're the loser who left yours down in the clinic," House scoffed.

"I wanted a cell phone for my last birthday," Lindsey called from her bundle of blankets, "but my mom told me I wasn't responsible enough, and I got a plastic doll house instead."

House whirled on her. "Playing the gendered society blame game isn't helping anyone, now is it?" he growled. "Go back to sleep and stop eavesdropping."

She frowned, her little forehead wrinkling in disapproval, but she burrowed back under her blanket until she was out of sight.

House pushed Wilson's foot out of his lap and grabbed his cane once more. "How's it feel? Test it out," he ordered.

Wilson gingerly slid off the soup station, trying his weight out on his newly wrapped foot. "Feels a lot better."

"Back to what you were saying, Imminent Victim Number Five Hundred Twenty-Two," House said, poking Foreman's leg with his cane. "If we could find a phone, that would be the icing on the cake. But our first order of business is a diagnosis."

"They're walking, they're moaning, they're biting," Foreman said with a sigh. "They're zombies. What else do you need to know?"

"I need to know _why_ they're zombies," House said, limping away towards the back of the room. "It's the only way to find a cure." He stood over Chase's trembling form, his eyes focused on something far away. "We need one…fast."

Wilson slowly lumbered over to House's side and looked down at the younger man. The morphine let him sleep, but Wilson could see Chase's skin was becoming more sallow and ugly; his entire body looked like one big bruise.

Wilson snuck a look at House's face, but it had turned blank and unreadable. The set of his jaw, the darkness in his eyes…it was something Wilson had never seen on his friend before.

"Well," House said finally, his gaze snapping away from the prone body as if nothing had happened, "I'm going out." He strode over to the door and picked up his backpack, arranging the shovel still sticking out of it. "Don't wait up for me." He grinned dangerously, wriggling his arms through the straps.

"What?" Wilson gasped. "No way in hell are you going out there alone!"

House balked. "But mom, all the cool kids are doing it."

"Wilson's right, House," Foreman said, crossing his arms over his broad chest. His white lab coat, though streaked with dried blood, still made him look formidable. "I never liked the idea of you going out there by yourself. We should stick together. Small groups of two or three."

"Though your heroics are appreciated, I actually need you to come with me anyway, Foreman," House said. "But you might only last ten minutes. Zombies are all about affirmative-action brain eating."

The neurologist raised an eyebrow, clearly not amused, but retrieved a sharpened metal pole (probably part of an IV stand in its previous life) from where it was leaning against a sneeze guard. "All right," he said, hefting the improvised weapon. "Let's do it."

"I'm going too," Wilson declared suddenly. He leaned against the nearby café table and crossed his arms over his chest with a scowl.

"When pigs fly!" House gestured wildly to Wilson's bandaged foot. "Foreman might be useful to me until they eat his big, sloppy brains, but you're only running on one cylinder."

"Look in a mirror," Wilson bit out. "You need someone to watch your back."

House looked around the room wildly as if not sure which object most deserved his pent-up rage. Finally, he settled on sticking a finger in Wilson's face. "Have you ever even _tried_ cutting off a human head? It's not easy."

"I'd feel better if he came," Foreman cut in, pursing his lips. "If only because Wilson would stop you if you tried to feed me to the horde."

"I'm not going to _feed_ you to them." House rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. "I'm just saying that, statistically, you're dead as a doornail."

"I'm going with you whether you like it or not," Wilson interrupted. He stuck his hand out. "Give me a weapon and let's go."

House grumbled a little before reaching into his bag and handing over a meat cleaver, obviously purloined from the kitchen.

"That's only good for close-range combat," House commented as Wilson grasped the cool metal handle. "You'll take the rear, then. Foreman, you can be behind me." He carefully unwound the chains that bound the double doors. "Follow my lead," he said over his shoulder. "Once we're in the hall, keep quiet so they don't hear us coming."

"So what's our plan?" Foreman asked, holding his sharpened stick tightly in both hands. "We start grabbing the charts of everyone who presented with the disease? Start looking for a pattern?"

"Maybe we should just stock up on more supplies," Wilson suggested with a worried glance towards the sleeping patients.

"Nah." House opened the door with a click. "I want to see what's on their minds. Besides moaning and decaying. Nancy," he called to the nurse, "lock the door behind us, will you?"

Foreman and Wilson opened their mouths to question him, but House had already flung the door open and was hobbling down the dim hallway. Foreman gave Wilson a look that said 'crazy mother fucker' before following his boss. Wilson took a deep breath, readjusted his grip on the bulky knife in his hand, and set out as well.

"Here's what I've got so far," House hissed in a low whisper as they moved slowly through the empty halls. He held his cane firmly in his right hand, his left always resting on the handle of the shovel over his shoulder in case he needed it. "We've seen the patients go through a systematic shutdown after the infection sets it. The virus must somehow hijack the nervous system after the body dies."

"Could also be a parasite," Foreman said softly, his wide eyes darting from shadow to shadow.

Wilson wondered how the hell the neurologist could possibly participate in a differential at a time like this. He himself could barely breathe. His shirt was damp under his arms, and his injured foot was screaming in pain as he tried to keep up with the two men.

House paused briefly at a junction of two hallways, craning his neck to see in both directions. "Possibly, though I still like viral better. Makes more sense if the thing is being spread through bites. Whatever it is, we need to look at the brain and find it."

"House," Wilson whispered. The older doctor swung his gaze towards him. "Why are we heading towards the neonatal ward?"

"I thought I'd give Foreman a break," House growled, "and find him a specimen that wasn't impossible to hold down."

Foreman's eyes widened in horror. "You can't mean…" he trailed off.

House rolled his eyes. "Look, we—"

He was interrupted by a loud screech as a zombie appeared from around the corner and fell towards House's neck. In a flash, House stepped back, lifted his shovel and swiped the creature's head off with one smooth motion.

He stuffed his weapon back in his pack. "Good ol' Betsy," he murmured, patting the handle with affection. "Where was I?" He turned back to the other two and leaned on his cane.

"You…want to dissect a zombie," Wilson reminded him, still staring at the fallen body. It had once been a doctor; it was still wearing a dingy lab coat. The smell of decay hung in the air, a combination of rotten banana peels and old meat.

"A _baby _zombie," House corrected, continuing down the hall. "Easier to catch. And I don't want to dissect it. I want to biopsy its brain."

"This is why you wanted me here?" Foreman asked incredulously. "You want me to take out a piece of a zombie's brain while it's still alive?"

House gave a sharp nod, not taking his eyes from the path ahead. "Technically, they're already dead. But if we kill the zombie for real, then the culprit dies with it. I need to see the virus, parasite, whatever. "

The three men slowed to a stop outside the swinging doors of the neonatal ward. House stopped there, one hand against the door. The collective moans of several zombies drifted through the walls.

Wilson swallowed. His throat felt dry. The cleaver felt too heavy in his hands.

"Don't forget: go for the neck. At the very least, bash their heads in," House reminded them. "I'll use Betsy to snatch up one of the kiddie critters."

Foreman nodded with resolve. Wilson thought he might finally throw up.

"You don't look completely onboard with this plan of action, Wilson," House hissed, studying his friend's face. "If you faint, I can't catch you."

"Don't worry about me," he said, his voice strained. He glanced unconsciously at the shovel now in House's hand, still dripping with thick black liquid. "I'm just wondering where you were the day they made us promise to _do no harm_."

"Hey, without me, you and every other card-carrying human being in this building would be kibble for the undead!" House stabbed his finger in the middle of Wilson's chest to prove his point.

Wilson steeled his jaw. "Admit it, House. You're _enjoying_ this."

"Yeah, it's a real hoot to fight for my life," House snapped back.

"Guys!" Foreman stepped between them. "Are we going to sit here and argue until the zombies come and eat us? Because I'm planning on surviving today."

House gave Wilson one final glare. "Keep an eye on him in there, Foreman," he said, and then he pushed the door open.

Wilson and Foreman followed House's lop-sided gait into the trashed ward. Torn papers were scattered all over the linoleum and equipment was knocked over, making an obstacle course of the whole floor. Wilson carefully avoided the areas littered with broken glass; his taped foot couldn't take another injury.

House eyed the crowd of zombies in the room. They seemed to hear his entrance, and turned in unison.

"Come on, baddies." House hooked his cane on a wayward gurney and unsheathed his snow shovel. "Let's show Wilson how we do _real_ harm."

The zombies let out a loud, low moan and began their slow advance towards House. Behind him, Wilson and Foreman gripped their meager weapons in white-knuckled hands.

House took a swing at the closest zombie, effectively beheading it in one blow. "I need you guys to find an incubator," he shouted over the moaning. "And a zombie that will fit in it. I can hold them off for a few more minutes." He stabbed at another zombie, a woman in dirty scrubs, cutting through her decaying windpipe. The zombie's moan turned to a wheezing breath, but the thing stayed upright. House had to hit it a second time before the zombie fell to the ground.

Foreman grabbed Wilson by the elbow. "Come on, before the crowd gets bigger." They took off towards the pile of discarded machinery to House's left, using his distraction and the debris as a blockade. While Foreman began digging through the mattresses and overturned IV stands, Wilson pulled at a tangle of wires. He saw the wink of a shiny plastic dome under all the garbage.

"I think I've found it," he called. "We just have to—" But a shocked gasp cut off any further speech. There, draped over his fingers, was a strand of pearls, stained with blood dried brown. It had been wrapped up in all the wiring. Slowly, Wilson looked down and saw the severed head of Lisa Cuddy at his feet. Her eyes were closed as if she were sleeping peacefully with her body still attached to her slender neck.

"Oh god…" Wilson looked up to meet House's questioning stare. Those quick blue eyes darted to the necklace in Wilson's hands, but House had to turn his attention back to the three zombies lurching towards his position.

"What is it?" Foreman yelled. The moans were getting louder.

Wilson's gaze snapped to a small knot of zombies in the corner of the wing, hunched over a shape on the floor, ignoring the chaos around them. Two feet stuck out from the tangle of rotting flesh. One was bare. The other was clad in a leather sling back.

"God," Wilson cried. "Get away from her!"

"No, don't—" Foreman tried, but Wilson was already vaulting over the refuse, making his way to Cuddy's body.

His first strike went wild, and the cleaver sunk into the soft, rotten skin of one zombie's shoulder. The beast turned and bared its teeth at Wilson, moaning from the pit of its dead stomach. Wilson pulled the blade out and tried again, finally landing a blow to the throat. But the spinal cord wasn't severed, and the zombie's head flopped back on its neck.

"Move!" Foreman shouted, pushing Wilson aside and spearing the creature in the chest. While it wriggled there, impaled, he ordered, "Now! Hit it now!"

Wilson did, with one last gut-wrenching crack. He watched the head fall to the floor with a disgusting plop, and looked up at Foreman.

The other man pulled his makeshift weapon free of the corpse. "Shit," he cursed. "There's too many." Already, the two other zombies were rising from where they had been feeding on Cuddy's remains. Wilson considered meeting them halfway and just hacking away at them, but House's words stopped him.

"She's dead! There's nothing else you can do. Leave her," House shouted from behind them. Wilson turned to see House nearly overwhelmed, his back against the charting desk and swinging at the handful of attackers. The loud noises seemed to divert the two zombies' attention, and they turned towards House instead of Foreman and Wilson.

Wilson gave the body one last mournful glance, and paused. "Look," he told Foreman, pointing at the body. There, chewing at the bloody mess, was a small infant with skin too mottled to be alive.

"House, we've got something!" Foreman called. "Help me grab the incubator, Wilson."

"Sorry, guys," House panted at the horde in front of him, "but my dance card's full tonight." He grabbed his cane and pushed a tall filing cabinet over, scattering the zombies for a moment. House dodged the roamers, whacking them in the face with his cane when necessary, until he made it over to the small zombie. While he scooped it up in his snow shovel, keeping a careful distance from its snapping jaws, Foreman and Wilson dug the incubator out of the heap of trash.

"I'm sorry," Wilson whispered in an abbreviated prayer, watching Cuddy's face once again disappear underneath the metal and wires.

"We need to get out of here," House said, dumping the zombie into the machine and snapping the plastic lid shut. "The elevator, now!"

Foreman took off at a fast pace, wheeling their specimen in front of him. Wilson turned and gauged the number of zombies on their tail. His eyes widened. They were coming out of every exam room, every office, every single closet.

There seemed to be hundreds.

"Close your mouth. You're catching flies," House said, taking hold of Wilson's arm and dragging him back to the hallway. A slow-motion race began, with the two men limping slightly ahead of the staggering crowd of groaning zombies.

At the end of the hall, Foreman was already waiting in the maintenance elevator with the specimen writhing in the incubator, moaning in a high-pitched squeak.

"Sometime today, guys?" Foreman screamed, his panic obvious in his eyes.

"Don't you get smart with me," House yelled back. "When this is all over, I still sign your paycheck!"

"Uh, when this is all over," Wilson pointed out, "we won't have a hospital to work in."

"Think positive, Jimmy." House fished the elevator key out of his pocket. "Catch!" he called as he tossed it to Foreman.

There was a moment where Wilson was convinced the silver key was going to slip through Foreman's fingers and fall in the crack between the floor and the elevator, but the other man managed to snatch it in midair. He jammed it into the control panel and, just as House and Wilson fell into the elevator, he twisted it and punched the 'close door' button. Five inches away, a snarling zombie's face disappeared as the metal doors slammed shut.

Wilson lay on the floor of the elevator for a moment, trying to catch his breath. His foot was throbbing, and in the scuffle, he'd lost his cleaver. House propped himself up on his elbows and glared at him.

"That was the stupidest thing I've ever seen you do," he said, panting heavily.

Wilson managed a watery smile and flung an arm across his eyes to block out the harsh red of the emergency lights. "Even stupider than marriage number three?" he asked.

"Let me think." House fell back to the floor next to him. "Did the mother of the bride have a craving for human flesh? I can't remember."

"Of course you don't. That's what I get for having an open bar." Wilson shrugged, glad for the feeling for House's rib cage rising and falling against his side. Alive, and okay.

"So," Foreman broke into their conversation, leaning against the lift's metal siding, "we've captured a baby zombie. Now what?"

House glanced up at their quarry. The creature's cries were muffled by the plastic covering, but the moans were just as eerie as its larger counterparts.

"Press the button for the eleventh floor," he said. "We're taking this puppy into surgery."

End Part 2


	3. Chapter 3

The eleventh floor was quiet and dark. Stepping out of the elevator behind House and Foreman, Wilson could see the deep blue of the night sky from the windows at the end of the hall. There were a few stars, white dots against a thick blanket, but no moon. The only real light in the hallways was the harsh red emergency lights that made everything look like it was being heated in a fast food joint.

House cocked his head to the side, listening for any movement. Appearing satisfied, he motioned to Foreman to go ahead. The younger doctor wheeled the incubator towards the nearest surgery room.

"Coast looks clear," he called to them, pushing open the door and peering inside.

The three men wasted no time preparing the instruments for a biopsy. Foreman found a surgeon's drill in its usual spot in one of the lower cabinets. He plugged it in, pressed the power button once, and the drill roared to life for a moment. "It looks like we've still got some juice in the room," he said.

"I can't find any sterilized needles," Wilson said, checking the metal trays. He held up one thin sliver of metal that measured about a foot long. "This one's been unwrapped already."

"Screw it, the kid's already dead. It'll have to do," House said with a wave of his hand. He was opening all the cabinets, pausing when he found some safety restraints. He gave a shout of approval and leaned his cane against the door so he could carry his find in both hands.

Inside the incubator, the small zombie was pressing its head against the clear plastic dome, moaning without end. Wilson tried not to look at the thing too much. The idea of carving up something that had once been a human child was disturbing enough, but the state of the zombie's decomposing body was another nightmare entirely.

The zombie's little fingers and toes, fragile parts even on a normal baby, had mostly rotted away, leaving only one or two digits on each stump of a limb. Parts of the cheeks and lips had also worn off, revealing the inside of the infant's gummy mouth. Its jaws flapped open and shut as if it was gnashing its teeth, though it had none. The eyes were dark and sunken, possibly blind at this point. It was naked, which made sense, Wilson thought; it looked only a few days old. The baby had probably still been in its swaddling clothes when it was…

He shut his eyes for a moment. Best not to think about what had happened to it. He glanced at the drooling creature once more. The rate of decay was so pronounced, he was having difficulty telling whether it had been a boy or a girl.

"Let's get this show on the road," House muttered, brushing Wilson aside to open the incubator.

"Hey—" Wilson's protests went unheard as House tipped the device on its wheels, letting the small zombie roll out onto the exam table.

"What? Worried about head trauma?" House asked as he tossed the nylon restraining ropes across the bewildered infant's chest and legs. "Make yourself useful and get the other side, quick."

Wilson sighed heavily, but followed House's directions. As he took hold of the other end of the straps, the zombie seemed to realize it was being trapped again and began to thrash with an incredible amount of force.

"Jesus!" Foreman cursed, jumping slightly as the thing snarled and keened. "Are you sure you guys can keep it down? Why don't we just sedate it?"

"Its heart's stopped. No blood flow. No way to inject a sedative," House bit out, fighting to keep his grip on the slick nylon. He held the straps firmly against the table, his fingers safely out of reach. Wilson followed his example and the zombie was more or less immobilized.

"Hurry up, Foreman," Wilson said, flicking his eyes to the neurologist.

The fellow did not seem pleased with the situation, but he went ahead with fitting the head restraint over the zombie's small skull. The zombie tried to snap at his hands, but the braces stopped any progress it may have made. "The light in here is all wrong," Foreman complained, waving his hand to indicate the strange, washed-out color everything had under the emergency lights.

"Live with it. And double up on your gloves," House suggested, tipping his chin towards the cardboard box on the counter behind Wilson. "You don't want to die because a toothless zombie infected you with its body fluids in surgery. That would be lame."

"Yeah, sure," Foreman snorted, snapping the gloves over his hands. "You'd rather I died in a blaze of glory, some sort of self-sacrifice for the greater good."

"Nope, you're not the hero of this story," House said, his dark gaze fastened on Wilson's face. "Leave it to the White Knight here to leap stupidly into the fray."

"I wasn't trying—" Wilson began.

"Oh, stop it. Just stop," House sneered. "Even when they're dead, you can't resist coming to the aid of a damsel in distress. It's fine to take down a few zombies then. Otherwise, it's just wrong." House drew out the O in 'wrong' for several seconds.

"I'm going to start drilling now. You two can argue later," Foreman said from behind his paper surgical mask. He thumbed the drill, and the noise drowned out any reply Wilson might have made. They had to hold onto the restraints tightly as the zombie began to spasm. House redoubled his efforts as well, but he didn't take his eyes off Wilson's across the table.

When the drilling stopped and Foreman began the delicate process of inserting the biopsy needle, Wilson cleared his throat.

"She was my friend," he said softly. "She didn't deserve…that."

"Yeah, I know," House said, his face tight and weary. He looked over at Foreman's progress, then at the floor. "But if you want to live through this, Wilson, you have to learn how to deal. You can't let your emotions dictate your responses. If you do, then this is you _getting eaten_." He made a face of wide-eyed panic, glancing around the room for unseen attackers. Then House schooled his face into a mask of seriousness. "And this is me, thinking clearly and saving your ass. So watch it."

Wilson looked away and nodded silently.

"I got it," Foreman announced, removing the needle from the brain tissue. "Not the most graceful biopsy I've ever done, but the sample looks good."

"Fantastic. Let's start testing it," House said. He glanced down at the small zombie on the table. The thing was dribbling saliva down its chin, its mouth opening and closing with less ferocity than before. "Little fella's tuckered out. Who wants to put him out of his misery?"

Foreman shook his head, disgusted. "It's all yours."

"Wilson?" House quirked an eyebrow at his friend. "Want to have a whack at it?"

Wilson could feel his face crumple helplessly. "I can't," he said. "You know I can't."

House chewed on his bottom lip and glanced over his shoulder at Foreman, who was busy placing the sample into a sterilized container. He didn't seem to be paying them any mind. House turned back to Wilson and said, "Let go of the restraints and hand me my shovel. Leave the room; you don't have to see this."

Wilson slowly let go of the straps, and the zombie only raised its arms weakly into the air. Once he was certain the thing wasn't going to jump off the table and bite them, Wilson found House's blue pack and extracted Betsy the Shovel.

"I'll stay," Wilson said, handing the tool out to House, their eyes meeting over the table again. "I'll be fine."

House took the snow shovel out of Wilson's grasp. "You know it's not a kid anymore," he pointed out. "It's just a dead body with an illness inside it."

"Just do it," Wilson said. "Please."

House pursed his mouth like he sometimes did when he was about to argue, but he wordlessly placed the shovel on the zombie's thin, wobbly neck and chopped it cleanly in two.

"Sorry," he muttered, though Wilson couldn't tell who it was directed at.

"Guys, we might have a problem," Foreman called. "What if the emergency power on this floor doesn't cover the lab? I need the electron microscope to even begin to look at this." He held the sample aloft.

House looked around the surgery room and set his shovel down on the table. "There should be portable backup generators on this floor. The surgeons need them in case there's a blackout in the middle of an operation. There's got to be one close by; I'll check the next room over."

He hobbled through the connecting door without his cane, as he often did in cramped quarters. Wilson watched him leave with a heavy sigh.

"Hey, you doing okay?" Foreman asked him with a frown. "I've had a few days to, you know, let this all sink in. But you just got thrown in the middle of everything." He glanced at the motionless pieces of the zombie on the exam table. "Things certainly have gotten weird, haven't they?"

"Sure have," Wilson said quietly, his gaze settling on the dead zombie as well. "Foreman," he asked, "do you think any of us are going to make it out of here alive?"

"I don't know," he said, collecting more tools on a wheeled cart. "House seems to know what he's doing."

There was a sudden burst of moaning from the next room over, and Wilson and Foreman spun around in horror. Above the room, in the viewing station, were five adult-sized zombies pressed up against the glass window. Through the glass walls, Wilson could see House standing directly beneath them, his face turned upwards towards the sound.

The largest one, a bald man wearing maintenance overalls, smashed his fist through the plate glass, and the zombies tumbled into the room below like lemmings.

"House!" Wilson screamed, sprinting into the next surgery room as quickly as his ankle would allow.

The older doctor had narrowly avoided being crushed by diving out of the way, but now he was pinned on the floor by the handful of attackers. One, an Asian girl with pigtails (Wilson recognized her as a resident), was crawling towards his feet. House grabbed a number nine scalpel that had dropped to the floor and stabbed it deep into her eye socket. The zombie screamed, tossing its head from side to side as if to dislodge it.

The zombie in overalls rose to its feet and leaned down to grab House's neck. House punched him in the face, buying a few seconds to crawl behind an overturned metal table for cover.

"What are you standing around for!?" he shouted. "Run, you idiots!"

Wilson glanced back at Foreman, who seemed to be frozen in fear. No help there. Wilson looked around the room wildly for something he could use as a weapon. His eyes landed on a bulky piece of equipment on the ground beside his feet.

"Wilson!" House was now using an IV stand like a lion tamer would use a chair, jabbing it in the zombies' faces when their jaws came too close. "Are you deaf? Get out of here!"

Wilson bent and grasped the instrument in his clammy hands. He straightened, eyeing the five zombies. All their attention was on House, the most vulnerable prey in the room. Their backs were to Wilson, and he calculated the amount of time this would take.

"What the fuck are you doing?" House continued, his voice reaching a fever-pitch. "Go!"

"House, this is me, thinking clearly," Wilson said, "and saving your ass." He clicked the power button, and the bone saw whirred to life. "Get down!" he ordered House, screaming to be heard over the buzzing racket.

The Asian girl was first, since she was closer than the others. Wilson flung the saw towards her throat, not unlike a chainsaw maneuver he had often seen in one of House's video games. The saw cut through the spinal cord well enough, but Wilson was not prepared for the spray of viscous black fluid as the blade sliced through her neck. He squeezed his eyes shut as an arc of foul-smelling ooze hit him in the face.

Well, guess I'm also doing this blind, he thought.

The zombies were slow to react, and Wilson found the next one easily, even with his eyes closed. The saw buzzed through, perhaps not the neck, but a reasonable chunk of skull. Wilson heard the body fall to the floor, and that was good enough for him.

Another, and then another, and another fell under the bone saw, until the moans had ceased and the only sound in the room was the wet noise of the saw and Wilson's own ragged breathing. He clicked the machine off and let it drop to the floor with a clang. The putrid fluid covered him head to toe, it seemed. When he felt it dripping off his bangs, he fought the urge to vomit.

Then the room erupted with House's curses. "Foreman, my cane!" he managed in between epithets. Wilson, his eyes still closed, felt House's long fingers close around his arm. "Don't open your eyes, and don't speak. The only thing we know for certain is this thing is spread through fluids, and you have enough crap on you to infect Texas."

Wilson nodded to show he understood, his mouth sealed in a grim line. He felt House pulling him in another direction, and he limped alongside him.

"Grab the generator in the corner," House ordered Foreman. "Take it to the lab and start the tests."

"You want me to go by myself?" Foreman asked, his voice laced with panic.

"I'll be there in a minute. You can take Betsy," House offered. Wilson heard him shove open a door, and soon they were walking swiftly down the hallway.

"Of all the incredibly stupid things you could have done in a situation like that," House ranted, obviously taking advantage of the fact that Wilson couldn't talk back. "I told you to run, and what do you do? You do the exact opposite of running! You sit there, like a, a, a willing victim."

Wilson wished he could risk a peek at House's face. He'd never heard the other man so upset. House slammed his way through another door and Wilson could feel cold tile under his bare, sprained foot.

"You're going to get yourself killed," House hissed. "Or bitten, and then I'll have to kill you myself. And I can't—" Wilson felt House's puffing breath against his neck as he sighed. "I can't kill any more friends. I'm down to the last one, actually."

House led Wilson through the new room before positioning him on the tile floor. Wilson heard the crank of a faucet and scalding hot water began falling down on his head. He jumped, but didn't open his mouth. Locker room, then.

Quick, clever fingers pulled away his tie and began unbuttoning his shirt. "I'm afraid your fancy French clothes did not survive," House muttered. "No amount of Shout will save them now." The wet shirt was peeled from his shoulders and fell with a plop to the shower floor.

Wilson helped the process by toeing off his remaining loafer and sock, and undoing his belt buckle. His filthy pants fell around his ankles, and he wondered if House would let him keep his boxers. But House didn't seem satisfied until Wilson was completely divested of his contaminated clothing, and he shoved at the waistband of the boxers until they, too, fell to the floor.

Wilson heard the _squeak squeak squeak_ of the soap dispenser, and then House's hands were scrubbing across his face and hair. The clean smell of disinfectant soap filled Wilson's nostrils, and for the first time since he'd picked up the bone saw, his heart seemed to slow its frantic pace.

"Idiot. Moron. Putz." House continued soaping up his hands and rubbing the fluid from Wilson's skin, punctuating each ministration with a new insult. "Feather-headed bird brain. Stupid sack of shit." Then English seemed to fail him, because he slipped into a string of Japanese that sounded much more offensive, even if Wilson didn't understand it.

For his part, Wilson stood still and allowed the warm water and foreign slurs to wash over him. He let House scrub his legs, stomach and back until they were clean. House's steady hands roamed up his shoulders and neck to his face, where he roughly rubbed the soap over Wilson's eyelids. Then the hands moved back to his hair, threading through the strands at the back of his head and squeezing out the excess water until House was satisfied that all the goo was gone.

All the steam seemed to leave House, and he leaned his forehead against Wilson's. He cupped Wilson's face between his hands and swiped at his lips with his thumbs. "Yaro," he whispered weakly. "Baka yaro."

Wilson swallowed past the lump in his throat. House was standing very close to him, his wet over-shirt sticking to Wilson's side. "Can I open my eyes now?" he asked.

House shifted away, murmuring, "Yeah."

Wilson blinked his eyes open, letting them adjust to the dim light of the empty locker room and the sting of the soap. He looked down at his naked body, clean and without injury, save for his wrapped foot. House was reaching for his cane, which had been hooked over the shower partition. His jeans, sneakers and shirts were soaked from standing in the shower. He refused to meet Wilson's gaze.

"We need to talk," Wilson said.

"I've already said all I'm going to say," House muttered. "I've run out of bad names to call you."

"I'm serious, House." Wilson turned the shower spray off and stood there, arms wrapped around his middle, trying not to look like a drowned rat. "Before I left for Maine, you—"

"Do you think we could drop this for just a little—"

"—came into my office and before I knew what was happening—"

"—while, at least until this whole walking dead thing gets cleared—"

"You kissed me!" Wilson finished, his voice rising above House's. "You kissed me," he repeated, quieter.

House finally looked over at him then, leaning on his cane with both hands. "I hate to tell you this," he said, "but we have bigger problems to worry about. Here's a hint: starts with a Z." He grabbed a dry towel that was hanging on a hook out of the reach of the shower spray and tossed it at Wilson's face.

Wilson caught the towel and started rubbing it over his wet hair. "It's why I came back here," Wilson said, refusing to let the subject drop. "When I couldn't get a hold of you after I left, I thought…I don't know what I thought. But I came back to the hospital to talk to you. I was worried."

"Well, now that we've decided who's to blame for Jimmy's Big Zombie Adventure…" House limped out of the shower and headed down a row of lockers.

"I'm not blaming you!" Wilson called after him, wiping the water off his body and throwing the towel to the floor. He followed House, struggling to keep up with his sore ankle. Wilson fought the shivers that shot through his naked body as he walked. "I just want you to tell me—"

"What?" House turned around abruptly to face him. "You want me to confess all those nasty pent-up feelings that I wanted to explore with a silly little kiss? Which, I might add, made you sputter something lame about traffic and scamper out the door like a frightened—"

Wilson threw his hands up in the air in frustration. "I was confused! Shocked. Surprised. I mean, where did that come from, House?"

House set his mouth into a thin line, his eyes shining like hard glass. He turned to one of the lockers and opened it. "You have two choices, pink or blue." He held up two sets of scrubs.

Wilson sighed and rubbed his chilly bare arms. "Blue," he said.

"Pink it is." House threw the pink ones at him, which he caught in one hand. As Wilson glowered at him, he began shucking his own wet jeans and shirts to change into the blue scrubs.

"So we're not going to talk about this?" Wilson needled, leaning against a low bench to tug on the clean clothes. He saw a pair of plastic sandals under the bench, probably someone's shower shoes, and slipped them on his bare feet.

House pulled the blue surgical scrubs over his head before answering. "How about we figure a way out of this mess first?" he said. "Then we can talk until next doomsday."

Wilson searched his friend's face for any signs of humor or falsehood, but found none. How like House, he thought, to keep his feelings at arms' length while death was knocking on the door. He'd seen it before House's leg surgery, with Stacy. He'd seen it after House's gunshot wounds, when the ketamine began to fail. But what he was seeing now was a promise, a pact.

Make it through this alive, House was saying, and I'll tell you how I feel.

He touched House's shoulder gingerly, feeling the powerful muscles shifting under skin and cloth. House looked up at him, but didn't pull away. Wilson nodded, letting a small smile play across his lips. "It's a deal," he said.

Even in the dim light, Wilson could see House's blue eyes taking on that bright spark he sometimes got when working a difficult case, or watching a dumb movie. Or walking down the hall, or drinking coffee.

With me, Wilson realized. Only with me. How long have I failed to notice?

"House," he whispered, daring to lean in a little bit closer, parting his lips just slightly. "House, I…"

A high-pitched screech echoed through the locker room, and the two men broke apart, startled. House grabbed his cane and whirled around, looking for the source of the noise. Wilson turned too, his eyes widening his saucers.

"Oh shit."

They were surrounded. At both ends of the aisle of lockers, throngs of zombies were moaning and slouching towards them. There were dozens, maybe even fifty. Wilson looked at his empty hands; no weapon to fend them off.

"What are we going to do?" he asked, standing back to back with House.

"Think you can give me a leg up?" House asked, his words coming so fast Wilson nearly missed them.

"What?"

House cupped his hands like a ladder step in demonstration. "A leg up! Come on, come on."

Wilson dutifully laced his fingertips together and bent at the waist, allowing House to shove his soggy Nike into the hold. Keeping a tight grip on his cane, House boosted himself up and clambered onto the top of the lockers.

"Take my hand," he said, reaching down for Wilson.

Wilson glanced at the approaching zombies on both sides. His foot was killing him and he wasn't sure he could make the climb like House had.

"For the love of…" House's hands snaked down and grabbed Wilson by the wrists, hauling him forcibly up onto the lockers. It seemed impossible to Wilson for House to have lifted him straight into the air like that with nothing to keep him from tumbling down himself, but the man seemed to be possessed by a strength born of panic.

Wilson curled into the small space between the top of the lockers and the ceiling. Some of the taller zombies reached up towards them, and Wilson yanked his feet away from the edge, away from their groping hands. Beside him, House was panting with exertion. A decaying hand pawed at his hair, and he batted it away with his cane.

Wilson surveyed the sea of zombies that had surrounded their little island. He sighed. "Now what?" he asked.


	4. Chapter 4

"You know what my dad would say if he could see me now?" Wilson muttered, peering warily at the pulsating horde of zombies below. "He'd say, 'James, I told you to get an MBA.'"

House clicked his tongue against his teeth in thought. "Your dad would be wrong," he assured. "The insurance adjustors on the fifth floor were the first to go." He kicked a wandering zombie hand away from the edge of the lockers. "They barely noticed their brains were being eaten."

Wilson tensed as the locker they were sitting on shuddered with the pressing weight of the zombies. Far below, the metal creaked and groaned as fasteners threatened to come undone.

"We're dead meat sitting here," he said, pushing his hands against the solid stucco ceiling. "An air shaft would be very handy right about now."

"That's a classic," House hummed in agreement, glancing around the room. "We could try jumping to the next row of lockers," he suggested.

Wilson eyed the distance to the nearby lockers across the surging ocean of zombies. They would have to somehow jump with only a few inches of clearance and land on a foot-wide strip of metal. And even if they could, it wouldn't improve the situation very much.

"I don't think I could make it," he admitted.

"I'm not much of a long-jumper either," House grumbled. "Pole vault, though, I'm not too shabby at. You don't happen to have a seven foot–long pole on you, do you?"

Wilson shook his head. "You stole that idea from _Tremors,_" he accused, wagging his finger in House's face. "The first one, with Kevin Bacon."

House rolled his eyes. "If I'm not allowed to strategize using plans from Kevin Bacon movies, then it's been nice knowing you," he snorted.

Wilson cracked a smile then, and opened his mouth to deliver a scathing retort. But the zombies had begun to push and rock against the lockers like an angry mob attacking a car in a riot. Metal screeched and the lockers swayed from side to side. Wilson and House scrambled for purchase on the smooth metal surface, mostly grabbing onto each other's scrub shirts for balance.

"They're going to push it over," Wilson gasped. His fingers dug into the soft cotton covering House's chest.

"Hit the ground running," House managed to tell him before the world tipped sideways.

The bolts that held the lockers on the floor creaked and gave way, and the whole metal contraption started to fall backwards, away from the exit door. House had his cane in a white-knuckled grip in his right fist, his other hand clutching at Wilson's shoulder. They tumbled back, and the crowd of zombies parted like an ill-mannered rock concert audience, allowing the two men to fall to the hard tile floor.

Wilson rolled onto his back as fast as he could, wincing at the pain caused by a jarring fall. He opened his eyes to see a host of zombies leaning over him, their combined scent of decay overpowering his senses, their blank eyes staring at him.

"Go, go, go!" House shouted, though Wilson couldn't see him through the thick crowd.

He staggered to his feet, shoving the zombies away as best he could. "Where are you?" he cried, searching the room with a wild gaze. But everywhere he looked was just the walking dead, slowly coming closer to him. Chipped teeth snapped at his arm, and Wilson yanked it away before they sank into his skin.

"Just get out!" House's voice echoed through the locker room, making it impossible to tell which direction it was coming from. The sounds of blows rang out, but Wilson still couldn't pinpoint it.

He cursed and dodged around an upright set of lockers, trying to lose the mindless creatures chasing him. He raced towards the door marked with the glowing green exit sign while ignoring the shooting pain in his ankle. A gnarled hand shot out of the shadows and grabbed at his scrubs, but he pulled away and kept running.

"House? House!?" Wilson called, hoping to run into his friend at any moment. But the only answer was the ubiquitous moaning from the horde and the shuffling of their collective feet. Wilson reached the doorway and turned to look for House one more time. "Come on!" he shouted, looking over his shoulder at the zombies.

He had to go. There were just too many.

Wilson burst into the hallway, skittering to a stop as he faced an even larger crowd of moaning, flesh-craving creatures. They shambled down the hall, arms raised and cries growing at the sight of him.

"Foreman?" he called, looking around the lonely hallway. "Anybody?!" He took a few steps backwards.

He looked over his shoulder. There was nothing but the blood-streaked walls and a cracked window at the end of the hall. Eleven stories up, Wilson thought, does not bode well for my chances.

He turned back to the dozens of zombies jerk-stepping their way towards him. His jaw ticked with anger.

"I didn't make it this far for it to end like this," he muttered. Wilson looked around once more, convinced there was some weapon, some salvation he had overlooked. His eyes landed on the shining silver grate of an air vent affixed to the wall. Wilson looked up at the ceiling and said to God, " _Now_ you give me one."

But he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He dug his fingers into the wide grate and pulled with all his strength. The screws popped loose, and the slatted plate fell to the floor with a clang. He peered into the total darkness of the shaft; it looked like the thing went straight down. Where it ended, he wasn't sure, but it had to be better than getting torn apart on the eleventh floor.

With one last glance at the advancing horde, Wilson held his breath and swung his sprained foot into the air duct. At first, he wasn't sure he'd fit, but the putrid smell of the zombies forced him to reconsider.

"Think thin," he whispered to himself.

He closed his eyes and tried to pretend it was a waterslide, minus the water, plus the man-eating monsters behind him. He jammed his other foot down the chute and let himself drop, falling straight down, down, down, his stomach leaping into his throat. Wilson fell like a rag doll, smashing against the unforgiving metal sides of the shaft and letting loose sharp cries of pain. The fall seemed to last for hours though it was really only a matter of seconds.

He landed at the bottom with a loud thump and allowed himself a groan. His ribs didn't feel completely intact, and his sprained ankle was complaining much more loudly than before. He lifted a hand to his forehead, and he felt warm, sticky blood seeping from a gash on his temple.

"Could be worse," he whispered to himself, listening to his voice ricochet around inside the air duct. "You could be zombie food." He took a deep breath and opened his eyes to find total blackness surrounding him. He couldn't stay here forever; he had to find House and Foreman.

Wilson fought the bursts of pain in his ribs as he began crawling through the air shaft. He groped blindly, feeling out twists, turns, and small drops in the ducts, until he saw a blurry patch of light up ahead. It took more time than he cared to admit to reach the light, turn himself over, and kick out the grate.

When he finally slid out into the cool, open air, he immediately recognized his surroundings. He was on the second floor, where patients were normally kept for observation. Like the other floors, this one was in disarray, as if a war had broken out in the middle of the workday. The usually bustling space was silent now; even the bubbling sound of the water feature was hushed. But there was no moaning, no shuffling of undead feet, and that was a good thing.

Wilson sat on the floor and rested for a moment, panting to catch his breath. The twinge in his side wasn't leaving, but there was nothing he could do about that now. He looked around for some kind of weapon in case a zombie did show up, but the only thing within easy reach was the bent grate from the air shaft. Wilson picked it up and turned it around in his hands, trying to think.

House and Foreman were okay, he thought. They had to be. Or at least, he mused with a bit of guilt, House had to be. Foreman had said it himself, the man knew what he was doing. House had probably escaped before Wilson could catch up, that was all.

He was okay. He had to be.

Wilson caught sight of his distorted reflection in the shiny slats of the grate. His blood-soaked face stared back at him, and for the first time all day, he thought he might lose the fight against the tears pricking at the backs of his eyes.

He choked on a little whimper and covered his eyes with his hand. You're on your own now, he mentally yelled at himself. Get a grip.

Then Wilson's ears picked up the small sound of metal scraping against plaster. Before he could figure out what it was, he saw something coming at his head out of the corner of his eye. Instinctively, he blocked the sharp weapon with the grate in his hand, and the clang of metal rang out through the empty hall.

From behind the corner, a seated figure emerged, holding the offending weapon.

"Dr. Wilson?" she said. "I thought you were on vacation."

Wilson's jaw dropped, and he lowered his makeshift shield. "Dr. Whitner?" he sputtered.

Judith Whitner gave him a self-deprecating shrug and shouldered her weapon. "In the flesh," she said.

Wilson gaped up at her, a tiny slip of a women sitting in a wheelchair. He barely knew Whitner; her field was research, and he rarely intruded on the lab. The only time he'd really paid her any mind was during that parking space debacle, when House had fought her for a better handicapped spot. Now she sat there, looking a bit worn in her torn lab coat and messy ponytail, but otherwise fine.

"You're…alive?" He blinked.

"Good eye," she said with a smirk. "Sorry I almost took your head off." She gestured to her spear-like instrument. "I heard a loud noise, and I figured you were another one of those zombies." A frown creased her forehead. "That's a nasty cut you got. Come on, let's get you fixed up."

Whitner wheeled herself in a circle and set off down the hall, her spear still resting over his shoulder. Wilson blinked again and struggled to his feet, leaving the grate behind.

"You know about the zombies?" he asked.

She shot his an impatient look over her shoulder. "Did you just get here or something? They're walking. They're dead. Doesn't take a genius." She rolled her eyes and continued down the hall.

"I _did_ just get here," Wilson retorted. "I was with House, but we got separated. I had to jump down the air duct to get to safety."

"House?" Whitner exclaimed. "That one-legged bastard is still kicking? Good for him." She stopped behind the disheveled nurses' station and reached for a first aid kit.

"Yeah, I…I think so," Wilson sighed. He scrubbed at his face, flaking off dried bits of blood from his wound. "So why aren't you in the cafeteria with the others?"

"There are others?" Whitner asked, wide-eyed. "How many?"

Wilson shrugged. "A couple dozen. Mostly patients. House is trying to find a cure. He's running some tests."

The woman snorted and rummaged through the kit in her lap. "Good luck with that. As for me," she said, "when all hell broke loose and the elevators stopped working, I was left here, trapped. I had to abandon my motorized chair for the manual one. Less noise." She brushed some strands of long brown hair out of her face and adjusted her eyeglasses. "Not a bad place to get stuck. I busted open the vending machines, so I have plenty of food. And I got this baby." She held out her weapon with pride.

Wilson raised an eyebrow at the dangerous tool. It appeared she had taken a shovel and filed down one side into a sharp blade.

"Looks effective," he commented.

"It is." Whitner tore open a packet and removed an alcohol swab. "You'll notice there isn't a lot of zombie activity in these parts. I've been very meticulous about dispatching them the minute they wander in here. Now come down here so I can reach." She waved her hand."

Wilson stooped a little and allowed her to dab at the cut on his temple. "You seem so prepared," he said. "How did you know they have to be beheaded?"

She set about applying the dressing to Wilson's forehead in a crisp, efficient, almost maternal, manner. Her mouth was set in a firm line of concentration before she spoke. "Before I lost the use of my legs," she began, "I did a lot of work for Doctors without Borders." She taped the square of cotton down near Wilson's hairline. "I was in Haiti for a few months, working in a clinic. Do you know much about Haiti, Dr. Wilson?"

Wilson shook his head.

Whitner smiled. "Let's just say," she whispered, "this isn't the first time I've seen the dead walking."

"You saw an outbreak?" Wilson's eyes went wide.

"Big time." She snapped the kit shut with a flourish. "They choppered the American doctors out of the hot zone once they realized what was happening. Then they reported that the carnage was another surge in the Haitian civil war, which covered it up nicely."

"But they must have stopped disease from spreading," Wilson said vehemently. "They must have figured out a way to control it or—"

Whitner held up her hands. "As far as I know, the only solution was total eradication of the infected subjects." She replaced the first aid kit and looked up at Wilson. "It hasn't gotten out of the building yet, has it?"

"No," Wilson sighed, dragging a hand through his damp hair. "The police have us surrounded. I stumbled in here on accident."

"Lucky you," Whitner said dryly. She eyed his empty hands. "Have you been walking around unarmed?" she asked.

"Had a knife. Lost it." Wilson gave her a sheepish grin.

"A knife?" she scoffed. "Lame."

"I also had a bone saw, but that got messy."

"Well, here," she said, reaching underneath the nurses' station. "You can have my backup." She handed Wilson an identical sharpened shovel. "It's amazing what you can do with a supply closet full of tools and a little elbow grease," she said with a wink.

"Thanks," was all he could manage, hefting the thing in his hands and thinking about House's beloved shovel somewhere on the eleventh floor. "I guess great minds think alike."

"Listen." She glanced at her delicate platinum wristwatch. "It's past midnight, and you look like shit. Why don't you crash in one of the ICU beds, and we'll take turns at keeping watch? I'll wake you in three hours."

Wilson nodded and looked over his shoulder; almost every room seemed to either hold a dead body, a decapitated zombie, or blood-soaked sheets on the bed.

"There's a room down the hall," Whitner said. "It's still usable. Go ahead."

Wilson did as he was told, picking his way towards the room Whitner motioned to, dragging his new shovel behind him.

He found himself in a clean room, though it was obviously no longer as "clean" as it had once been. The motorized doors, designed to seal an infected person inside completely, were stuck in the open position. The unmade hospital bed was still covered with white sheets and a pitcher of filtered water still sat on the bedside table.

Wilson leaned his sharpened shovel against the glass wall and lifted his scrub shirt a few inches to see the damage in the reflection. A dark purple bruise was spreading across his ribs, and it hurt like hell. With a sigh, he grabbed the jug and gulped down mouthfuls of cool water before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The pitcher went back on the nightstand.

He kicked off his plastic sandals and considered stripping out of his peach-colored scrubs, but decided he was too tired to bother. Wilson slid between the bed sheets, wondering how Whitner had managed to sleep at all, being so totally alone against the unknown number of zombies roaming the hospital. Even knowing that she was watching over him while he slept, Wilson didn't think he could let himself relax.

He clutched the thin pillow to his abdomen and tried to blot out the pain of his cracked ribs by thinking about House, and how safe he must be by now.

Boop ba doop. Boop ba dobadop. Boop—

Wilson sat up in bed. The night's events were finally getting to him. He was going insane and hearing things.

—ba doop ba deedee doop. Boop ba doop…

"Oh my god," he whispered. It was a cell phone ring. An annoying cell phone ring, but that was beside the point.

He leapt out bed, heedless of his swollen ankle, and hobbled into the hall. The tinny noises were faint, but unmistakable.

"Don't hang up, don't hang up," Wilson chanted, digging through a pile of upturned waiting room furniture and old magazines. His search halted for a brief moment as his hand brushed against something wet and red. For a horrified moment, he thought he'd found a body part, but it turned out to be a damp red blanket.

The ringing stopped abruptly with a loud BEEP. Wilson froze, listening intently for a few moments, but the sound did not return.

"God dammit," he cursed, slamming his fist against the black leather settee that was now on its side. The thing shifted, and a tiny handbag fell from between its cushions. Wilson blinked at it and unzipped it cautiously.

A miniscule pink cell phone dropped into his waiting palm. Its bite-sized screen said, "One missed call: Brian."

"Oh, I fucking love you, Brian," Wilson gasped in relief. He glanced around the dim hallway, but Whitner was nowhere to be seen. She was probably patrolling the floor, he imagined.

"Can't sit and wait for the battery to die on me," he whispered to himself, flipping the phone open and hitting 9-1-1.

The phone rang twice. Then it clicked. "Nine one one, what is your emergency?" a woman's voice asked.

"This is Dr. James Wilson," he answered in a rush. "I'm at the Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. There's been a—"

"Sir, I'm re-directing your call," she broke in, drawling in a bored tone.

"Wait! No, please don't re-direct me. I need to speak to—"

"Sir." The woman sounded like she was eating something crunchy. "I've been told to direct all calls concerning the situation at PPTH to the proper authorities."

"The _situation_?!" Wilson cried. "Do you have any idea what's happening here? There're—"

"Please hold." Scratchy parade music flowed through the earpiece and a calm voice spoke to him, letting him know that his call was important to the city of Princeton's municipal employees, and if he would just be patient, his call would be answered in the order it was received.

"You have got to be kidding me," Wilson groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.

A quiet roll of wheels resonated down the hall and Wilson looked behind him to see Whitner coming towards him. He sat back on his heels and gave her a little wave, pointing to the small phone still pressed against his ear.

"What?" she gasped. "Do you have a signal? Who did you call?"

"The police." Wilson rolled his eyes. "I'm on hold."

She slapped her palms against the armrests of her wheelchair. "This is total bullshit!" she hissed.

Wilson opened his mouth to answer, but the phone suddenly went dead. He checked the screen; the cell still had some power.

"I think I just got disconnected," he seethed, punching in the numbers again. Whitner watched closely as he waited for an answer. When the call was picked up, he just launched into: "This is Dr. James Wilson at PPTH. We are under attack. People are dying and we need help ."

The 911 operator sighed. "Sir," he said, "I'm going to re-direct your call."

"It's zombies!" he shouted down the line. "I don't know what they've been telling you, but you have to—"

"Sir, you're going to have to hold." A click, and the same message began playing against the background of patriotic marches.

Wilson fought the urge to throw the phone against the wall just to shut it up.

"House was right," he muttered, still clutching the phone to his ear. "They're ignoring us. They're waiting for us to die."

Whitner reached down and laid her hand on Wilson's shaking shoulder. "It's the only way," she said softly. "Total eradication."

"What will they tell my parents?" Wilson whispered. "How will they think I died?"

The woman stayed silent for a moment, rubbing at Wilson's cotton-covered shoulder as if at a loss. "You have any kids?" she asked.

Wilson shook his head. "Three angry ex-wives and two sets of alimony," he said, directing a wry grin up at Whitner's face. "You?"

She shrugged. "An angry ex-girlfriend and a lot of credit card bills. Getting eaten doesn't look all that bad, I guess." They laughed together, a dark chuckle.

Suddenly, the Sousa march ended and the phone clicked. Wilson glanced at the screen, thinking he'd been disconnected again, but the phone was still counting the seconds. He raised the cell back to his ear.

"Hello?" he breathed.

"So you're still in the land of the living," a voice answered, dry and rough like gravel.

"You." Wilson clenched his teeth.

"It's nice to hear from you, Dr. Wilson," Tritter said.


	5. Chapter 5

"I see you've managed to survive the situation well enough," Tritter continued on the other end of the line. "I suppose we have Dr. House to thank for this. For all of this."

"What are you talking about?" Wilson ground out, his muscles tensing with every word the detective spoke. He switched the tiny pink cell phone to his other ear, and Whitner tapped his shoulder. He glanced up at her questioning eyes, but didn't offer any explanation.

"This whole mess," Tritter growled. "Don't you think it's strange that of all the hospitals in America, in the world, that this tragedy would happen on House's watch? Now I'm in charge of making sure none of those freaks make it out of the hospital and I can't help but feel that the good doctor had something to do with this."

Wilson curled his free hand into a fist and concentrated on digging his fingernails into his palm. "Look, these zombies aren't—"

"Zombies?" the detective interrupted. Wilson heard his heavy sigh over the phone. "So you believe that fairy tale too? I thought you were a man of science."

"Are you insane?!" Wilson screamed into the phone. "Look through the lobby doors! There are people walking around who are _dead_, who have _been_ dead, who are infecting—"

Whitner leaned forward in her wheelchair. "What is it?" she whispered. "What's going on?" Wilson waved her off, but she only leaned closer to listen to the phone call.

"This disease could be many things," Tritter cut in once more. "It could be skin infections that make patients appear corpse-like. It could be an environmental hazard that's caused a mass hallucination. It could even be one old, drug-addicted man releasing his own brand of retribution on the world."

"House didn't—"

"However!" Tritter shouted over Wilson's protests. "It cannot possibly be zombies, because there is no such thing as zombies, Dr. Wilson." He chuckled, a dry rasp in the phone line. "When I sent you into that building, I thought maybe you'd be able to overcome House's ruse; you did once before. But now I see that you'll meet your end just like everyone else."

"You son of a bitch," Wilson hissed. "These aren't _skin infections_. They are the walking dead, and they are going to kill everyone in here if you don't help us."

"I have been ordered to seal off the premises," he answered, "and do whatever is necessary to ensure that this illness, whatever it is, does not spread beyond PPTH. Surely, as a doctor, you understand."

"For the love of god, there are children in here!" Wilson cried.

"What were you expecting?" Tritter asked. "This isn't the movies. No helicopter landing on the rooftop, no Marine troopers busting through the windows with guns blazing. No one's coming to the rescue." He paused for a moment. "I'm hanging up now. Goodbye, Dr. Wilson."

"No, no, wait!" Wilson babbled into the receiver. Whitner snarled and grabbed the phone from his hands.

"Who is this?" she barked, holding the cell to her ear. "Because you are speaking to Dr. J. Whitner, head of the Princeton Research Facility, and I can confirm that Dr. House has released a virus inside the building. I have a vaccine that needs to be replicated and distributed ASAP."

Wilson blinked rapidly, his mouth hanging open. Whitner listened to the reply on the phone and winked back at him.

"Of course your perimeter is secure, Detective," she snapped once the tinny voice stopped, "but do you really want to take that chance? When this crisis is over, there will be questions, and you will be holding the answer. This sort of thing will never happen again, thanks to you."

There was another crackly response from Tritter, and Wilson leaned over and whispered, "What the hell are you doing?"

Whitner placed her hand over the receiver. "It'll light a fire under their asses, get them in the building."

"But once they see we don't have a vaccine…" Wilson furrowed his brow.

Whitner rolled her eyes. "We'll hand over a vial of saline. How the fuck will they know the difference? Once they're inside, they'll see the zombies are real and they'll get us out of here."

She turned her attention back to the phone. "Yes, sir, I understand. However you see fit." Whitner flashed Wilson a thumbs-up and a wide grin. "The sooner, the better, Mr. Tritter. The vaccine is very delicate and we don't have the resources to keep it fresh. Yes—"

A sudden burst of moans cut through the silent hallways, and Wilson froze.

"I'll have to call you back," Whitner whispered into the phone. She snapped it shut and tossed it to Wilson, who caught the cell reflexively. "Where's the weapon I just gave you?" she asked, reaching for her own alongside her wheelchair.

Wilson glanced back at the open clean room. His shovel was leaning there against the glass walls. "I'll be right back," he said, dropping the phone into the breast pocket of his scrub shirt. He levered himself onto his feet and hurried back to the room as fast as his swollen ankle would allow.

By the time he grasped his shovel's smooth wooden handle and turned around, the hall was filling with zombies. They seemed to be coming in droves from the direction of the stairwell. Whitner sat in her chair quite calmly, watching their slow progress down the hallway and engaging the manual brakes on her wheels.

"Is that a good idea?" Wilson asked, rushing back to her side. "What if you need to get away?"

"My legs don't work," she pointed out. "I'm not going anywhere." With a loud battle cry, she swung her shovel up through the soft flesh under the nearest zombie's chin, driving the point of her sharp pike into its brain. It fell with one last groan, and Whitner pulled her shovel free of the creature's skull.

"Jump in whenever you like, Dr. Wilson," she said, her brown eyes sparkling with adrenaline. "There's plenty to go around."

Wilson shook himself out of his stupor and got to work, slicing through another zombie's neck with the flat part of his blade. Another zombie approached, legless, dragging itself across the floor with its fingertips. Wilson danced away from its strike at his ankle and buried the point of his weapon into its occipital lobe. The zombie convulsed once before sprawling limply on the ground like a doll that had been torn apart.

Wilson wiped the sweat from his eyes and looked up at the approaching horde. "I thought you said there weren't a lot of zombies in these parts," he grunted, swinging his weapon again to catch an undead nurse under the jaw.

"This is the most I've ever seen at one time," Whitner panted, using the leverage from her locked wheelchair to fling another corpse off her shovel. "We might be in trouble."

"Getting a speeding ticket is trouble. Being drunk at your own wedding is trouble," Wilson retorted. "We, however, are screwed." He could see the undead streaming through the waiting area, past the silent water feature and overturned potted plants. There were about thirty that he could see, with more still in the stairwell, blocking their only chance of escape.

And with Whitner in the wheelchair, Wilson knew even the stairs weren't a viable option.

He took some of his frustration out on a zombie wearing a black T-shirt that said _W: The President_. Its dented skull made a satisfying crack against the linoleum floor. But Wilson's catharsis was short-lived; he ducked to avoid the grasp of an obese zombie in a camouflage baseball cap, and his sprained ankle gave out underneath him.

Wilson hit the floor with a grunt. The cell phone fell from his shirt pocket and skittered across the linoleum.

"Shit!" He reached for it, but the heavy zombie took one more lumbering step forward and crushed the phone beneath its Timberland boot. Wilson stared at the jumble of circuits on the ground with wide, disbelieving eyes.

"Get up before he stomps on you too," Whitner shouted from her spot against the wall, still spearing zombies with ease. Wilson hauled himself up, gasping at the pain in his leg and side, and smashed his weapon into the zombie's face.

"There goes our only link to the outside world," Wilson sighed, hefting his weapon in his hands.

"Any more bright ideas?" Whitner demanded, clicking the brakes off her wheels and pivoting to impale a zombie that had snuck up behind her.

Before Wilson could formulate a soothing lie, they both heard a cheery ding behind them at the other end of the hall. "That's the maintenance elevator!" he cried. "House must have found us. Come on!"

He dispatched one last zombie before grabbing hold of Whitner's wheelchair and pushing her down the hallway. The zombies tried to follow them, but the piles of their dead brethren slowed their progress.

Wilson raced past the empty rooms, skidding to a halt outside the elevator. The metal doors opened up, and Betsy the snow shovel nearly took his head off.

"Watch it!" he yelled into the lift. "It's just me."

"And me," Whitner piped up, covering her head as well.

Foreman poked his head out of the elevator. "You two are still alive? Where's House?"

"He's not with you?" Wilson asked, eyes wide.

"We can chat about this later," Whitner cut in. "Let's just get the hell out of here."

She wheeled herself into the elevator, and Wilson glanced over his shoulder at the dozens of zombies behind them. He was about the follow the other doctor into the lift when a flash of polished wood caught his eye.

"Oh no," he breathed, turning back to face the zombies. The elevator doors nearly closed behind him, but Foreman stuck his hands between them.

"We have to go, Wilson!" he shouted. "Get in!"

Wilson ignored him and rushed forward, beheading two more zombies on his way.

"What the hell are you thinking?" he heard Whitner screech. "Let's go!"

But Wilson forged on, slamming the handle of his shovel into the face of the zombie that had caught his eye. The stunned creature fell to the ground, giving Wilson a chance to yank the thin shaft of gleaming wood from between its third and fourth ribs. The elegant curve of the handhold was so familiar, so unmistakable.

"House…" he choked, grasping the cane with a white-knuckled grip.

Strong hands grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back towards the elevator. "You crazy asshole," Foreman muttered, slapping the door close button once they were safely inside. "Why'd you go running off like that?"

Wilson didn't answer, only lifted the cane up so the other two doctors could see it.

"That's…not good," Foreman said softly. He sighed and placed a hand over his eyes as if in deep thought.

"It, it doesn't mean…" Whitner began, resting a comforting hand on Wilson's dangling forearm. "House is a tough son of a bitch. He'll be—"

"He can't get far without it," Wilson said flatly, his gaze still riveted to the cane in his hand. "And without the elevator key, he'd be trapped on the eleventh floor. All alone, with no weapons. And I…I left him there…" His voice wavered, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

"Listen, I'm sorry," Foreman said, his own clipped tone doing nothing to hide his troubled expression. "Let's just get back to the others and we'll—"

The younger man was just about to press the button for the ninth floor when there was a terrible banging on the other side of the elevator doors. The three doctors went completely still, listening for the telltale moans but hearing none. The blows became louder.

"I know you're there!" a voice called through the layers of metal. "The indicator light is still working."

"What?" Wilson gasped. The cane and his shovel clattered to the floor of the elevator, and he jabbed at the open door button with his fingertip. Foreman and Whitner didn't even have time to stop him.

The doors whooshed open to reveal a flushed House, leaning on a broken table leg in his right hand, and a fireman's ax resting over his shoulder in his left. His blue scrubs were spattered with black ooze, and there was an optimistic, if a bit wild, look in his eyes.

Wilson used his good foot to rise up a bit on his tiptoes. Over House's shoulder, he could see the horde of zombies was completely annihilated: headless, smashed or otherwise defeated.

"Oh my god," he whispered.

House's eyebrows rose in pleasant surprise as he looked to the floor. "Hey, you found my cane. Sweet." He flung away the table leg and bent to retrieve his proper sidekick.

"How the hell did you do that?" Foreman cried, pointing at the piles of unmoving corpses.

"And how did you make it down the stairs?" Whitner asked, eyeing House suspiciously.

"It's a long story involving a box of matches, a trash can lid, and some well-placed flammable liquids," House said, limping his way into the elevator. He faced forward as if this were a normal ride up to his office. "Push nine, please."

Wilson did so, still gaping at his intact friend. "You motherfu—"

"Foreman, what did the biopsy tell you?" House asked, completely ignoring Wilson's epitaphs as the elevator rose.

Foreman sighed. "You were right. It looks like a filovirus, very similar in structure to Ebola or the Marburg virus." He pulled some sheets of paper from the pocket of his tattered lab coat and handed them to House.

House studied the printouts with a furrowed brow. "Fantastic. Now all we have to do is create an antiviral."

Whitner scoffed. "Are you serious? There's no vaccine or antiviral for Ebola or Marburg because they're too goddamned difficult to pin down. How are we supposed to engineer a cure with no support, no equipment, no—"

"You must be new at this," House said, glancing down at the woman in the chair. "This is the part where I'm sarcastic and pissy. Duh."

"Well, there has to be some way to kill off the virus without destroying the host," Wilson muttered, rubbing his temples with his fingertips. It was hard to participate in a differential when House had miraculously escaped Zombie Island alive, but he had to try. "What about exposing an infected person to radiation? Maybe it would kill off the virus just like cancer cells."

"Cancer boy's first thought runs to cancer treatment. Novel," House snorted. "This virus is like a cockroach. That level of radiation would fry the patient's body before the virus even sneezed."

Whitner took the papers from House's hand and studied them through her eyeglasses. "If the virus infects brain cells, maybe removing the infected tissue would be enough," she suggested.

Foreman shook his head. "All the lobes are affected," he said. "Even a full frontal lobotomy wouldn't be enough to stop the virus."

"Oh, full frontal." House shivered dramatically. "I love it when you talk dirty." The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. "Come on, this is our stop," he said, leading the way with his newly-recovered cane.

They made their way back to the cafeteria without any more zombie encounters, and one of the surviving nurses let them in. Whitner immediately wheeled her way to the rows of patients, looking for something to help with. Foreman went to check on Chase in the corner, and House made a beeline for the restroom, ditching his ax by the door.

Wilson sighed and followed.

When he pushed the men's room door open, House was pulling off his stained scrub shirt and shoving it in one of the sinks. He got a handful of soap from the dispenser and turned the tap, soaking the shirt and scratching at the black marks.

"You're alive," Wilson said simply.

House looked up and caught Wilson's reflection in the mirror. "I'm also a Sagittarius. What's your point?"

Wilson took a few steps closer. "I thought you were dead."

"Well, you were wrong." House lifted the wet shirt from the sink and wrung it out, squeezing every last drop from it.

"We're still not talking about this?" Wilson asked.

The shirtless man grabbed his cane from the edge of the counter and hobbled over to the bathroom stalls, where he draped the shirt over the partition to dry. He turned, but didn't face Wilson. "Nope."

Wilson was on him in an instant, grabbing House by the shoulders pinning him against the partition with a growl. "You bastard, I thought you were gone! Do you have any idea how I…"

Wilson trailed off with a small whimper. His fingernails dug into House's bare shoulders, trying to still the shaking in his limbs. He looked up at House's glassy blue eyes and couldn't quite find an answer in them. Wilson leaned forward, his eyes drifting shut, and tried to brush his lips against his friend's.

House's hand covered Wilson's mouth, halting his progress. Wilson blinked his eyes open in shock.

"Not right now, Jimmy," House murmured, his gaze on the tile floor. He extricated himself from Wilson's arms and limped slowly toward the exit.

The younger doctor stayed frozen for a moment before lunging forward and grasping House's wrist. "Wait, what the hell, House?" he sputtered. "Before I left for Maine, _you_ were the one who kissed _me_. Now I'm here, practically throwing myself at you and you…"

House shook off Wilson's hold. "I don't want to talk about it because there's nothing to talk about," he mumbled, still not meeting Wilson's eyes. "I just don't feel that way about you."

"No, you're lying." Wilson let his arm hang limply at his side, the gears turning in his head. "Yet you know the odds are against us surviving this thing. Why wouldn't you…?" His eyes widened. "Oh, god."

House shook his head. "I made a mistake. I kissed you to mess with your head. It didn't mean anything, I—"

"Stop lying to me!" Wilson shouted. "And show me where you've been bitten!"

House closed his eyes and turned with a resigned sigh. He propped his cane against a urinal and lifted his left pant leg. There, on the back on his calf muscle, were two half-moons of teeth marks. The wound was already an angry red with dark bruises covering the surrounding skin.

"The only thing we know for sure," House said quietly, "is that it's transmitted through body fluids." He took hold of his cane once more and double-timed it to the door. "You can't kiss me," he whispered as he left.

Wilson stood there in the empty bathroom for a moment, waiting for the earth to stop moving beneath his bare feet. House was infected. House was going to turn into one of those creatures.

He heaved a sigh and dragged his hands through his hair. What the hell did it matter, he thought. They were all dead anyway; it was just a matter of time.

Wilson walked back into the cafeteria, noticing how dim the lights were now. The nurses had probably switched some of them off to help the injured patients get some sleep. Everyone seemed to be sprawled out on the floor, huddled in stolen blankets.

He found House in a corner behind two overturned tables. The man was rubbing carefully at his right leg, which was stretched out in front of him. House glared at his approach.

Wilson gestured to the offending limb. "I can still touch you, right?" he said quietly. "You must be in pain without the pills."

House swallowed before answering, his voice rough. "Sliding down nine flights of stairs on a trash can lid doesn't help either."

With a shrug, Wilson stepped over the makeshift cubicle walls and sat next to House on the cold floor. He batted his friend's hands away from the mangled thigh and began a cautious massage through the thin scrub pants. His fingertips traced the jagged path of House's scar, down his thigh to his knee, and back again countless times.

"Better?" he asked.

House nodded. "You should probably get some sleep," he said. "You haven't had any rest all day."

"Yeah," Wilson said blankly, abandoning his ministrations to grab a pile of blankets nearby. He began spreading one over the tile. "I'll just share these with you, if you don't mind. I haven't had a chance to steal my own bedding."

House rubbed a hand through the curly hair at the back of his head. "I don't think that's such a great—"

"I'm staying," Wilson cut in, his tone leaving no room for argument.

"Suit yourself," House said with only a fraction of him usual bravado. "But don't you dare try to kiss me in my sleep."

"You wish," Wilson chuckled, trying to keep to the joke for House's sake.

House lay down and rolled onto his left side, grabbing a pillow to place under his head. Since it was the only pillow, Wilson moved close to share it, pulling a thin sheet over their bodies. He pressed himself against House's back and felt his own breath puffing against House's neck.

He fought the urge to kiss the skin there.

"No licking," House mumbled, as if reading his mind. "Sweat."

"House," he rasped, draping an arm over his friend's bare waist, "do you honestly think I'll survive long without you? Just let me—"

"You might not care if you turn into a zombie," House whispered in the dark, still facing away, "but I do." He shifted his leg a little as if trying to find a more comfortable position. Without words, Wilson slid a leg between House's, giving it more support.

"That reminds me," House said. "I want you to kill me before I turn."

Wilson pressed his forehead against House's shoulder and spoke to his spine. "It's not going to come to that. We'll figure out a way to beat this."

"Wilson." House moved onto his back, allowing Wilson to rest his cheek against his chest, ear over his heart. "We can't fight this disease. It's not…" He sighed, lifting a hand to thread into Wilson's hair. "It's not something we can cure."

Wilson nodded against House's chest, taking deep breaths to calm the buzzing in his ears. He concentrated on memorizing House's scent, the texture of his skin, the way his heartbeat stuttered along with Wilson's.

"It's okay, it's okay," House whispered to him. They lay there, arms and legs tangled beneath the shared blanket, waiting for night to end.


	6. Chapter 6

Wilson tried to ignore the pokes on his shoulder. He groaned, pulled the blankets higher, and burrowed deeper into the warm cocoon he'd made. The poking didn't stop, and was joined by a harsh hissing noise.

It took a moment for Wilson's brain to identify the noise as English.

"Seriously, you guys need to wake up," Foreman's voice rumbled.

"Ugh," Wilson answered, curling into a tighter ball. His heavy eyes blinked open once, twice, and began to focus on the strange view of close-up chest hair under his cheek. "Crap," he muttered, pushing himself off House and looking up at Foreman. "We were just…"

Foreman rolled his eyes upwards. "Yesterday I watched the walking dead slurp up gray matter like gelato," he said. "The sight of you two snuggling? It's kind of ranking low on the shock meter."

House stretched like a cat and opened his bright blue eyes into tiny slits. "Black man wakes me up why?" he grunted, rubbing a palm across his face.

"It's Chase," Foreman said.

House stopped scrubbing the grit out of his sleepy eyes and sat upright next to Wilson. "Has he turned?"

"No. He's…" Foreman groped for words. "It seems like he's getting better," he finally said. "I don't understand. He should be dead by now."

House sat there with a frown on his face, blinking at the bright cafeteria lights. Wilson sighed at the picture he made, with curly hair sticking up every which way. He reached out to pat a tuft of the salt and pepper hair back into place, but House's hand shot out to grab his wrist.

"I'll be right there," House said to Foreman. The younger doctor nodded, glancing between the two men before turning to leave.

House released Wilson's hand. "There are a lot of oils on the human scalp," he said quietly.

It took Wilson a moment to remember what he was talking about. Then he remembered all the hellish events of the day before.

"Don't you think you're being a little paranoid?" Wilson asked, jerking his hand away with a scowl. "I have a medical degree. I know to wash my hands."

He stood and hobbled towards the restroom to do just that, slamming the door harder than he'd intended. Leave it to House to pick a fight while dying, he thought.

Wilson squeezed some soap out of the dispenser and hit the water tap. He washed his hands more thoroughly than necessary, cursing House under his breath the whole time. He splashed some cold water onto his face and told himself his eyes were red from lack of sleep.

He didn't notice House's approach until he caught sight of him in the mirror's reflection. House stood behind him, leaning heavily on his cane, looking like he was about to say something. But he didn't, just let his gaze drop from Wilson's in the mirror.

He limped across the room and pulled his dried shirt off the bathroom stall.

"What's up with Chase?" he asked, tugging the shirt over his head. "Any ideas?"

Wilson sighed. Back to diagnoses.

"It might be normal. It's not like we have a lot of data on this thing," he murmured.

House recovered his cane from where he'd leaned it against the wall. "I've seen a whole building get infected," he reminded Wilson. "And Foreman is right. Chase should be dead and drooling by now."

"Could be a secondary infection slowing the virus's progress," Wilson suggested. "He's been holed up in a room full of sick people. Chase could have easily contracted another illness."

House didn't give any indication that he'd heard. He stared up at the ceiling, tapping his fingertips against his lips in thought.

"House," Wilson said, "how long…?"

"Two days." He dropped his hand back to his side. "Maybe three. Then I'm another brain eater."

Wilson swallowed. "I…"

The door swung open and Foreman stuck his head in. "Whitner wants you to look at Chase," he said. "She thinks he might have immunity."

"Immunity?" House growled. "This isn't _Survivor_."

The younger doctor puffed out his cheeks in frustration. "She's serious. Come on."

Wilson and House exchanged glances and followed Foreman to where Chase was laid out. He did seem markedly improved. His complexion was still an unnatural color, but he seemed more alert and mobile.

"Hey." Chase waved a greeting to House. "I hear you killed about a thousand of those things. Or is it a million? The number seems to get bigger every time I hear the story." He smirked at Whitner, who was bent over his elbow, taking a blood sample.

She smacked his shoulder lightly in return.

"How's the pain?" House asked, unlooping the stethoscope from around Whitner's neck and arranging it in his own ears.

Chase watched as House pressed the metal disc over his chest. "I feel like I've been run over by a semi, but it's not unbearable. Foreman gave me a Vicodin this morning. That's all I needed."

House looked up at Wilson. "Heartbeat's a little slow," he said.

"Well, I've been sitting here for days!" Chase pointed out. "It's not like I've had a chance to do much cardio."

"So what does this mean?" Wilson asked slowly, needing to hear someone say the words out loud.

"He's immune," Whitner said, her voice brimming with triumph. "About 10 percent of the population can survive an Ebola outbreak. Marburg outbreak, 15 percent. This virus is no different. Some patients are genetically impervious." She gestured to Chase. "He can live through it."

"Oh, thank god," Wilson whispered.

Whitner nodded enthusiastically. "We can use Chase's blood to make a serum. It won't make any difference to the people who have already turned into zombies, of course. Their bodies are clinically dead. But for patients who have been exposed but haven't yet turned…"

"A cure," Foreman said. "We can fix it."

"You know how I hate to rain on the parade," House drawled, "but we need to test his blood before we can be certain."

"Yes, I know." Whitner held up the vial of blood. "We need to get to a lab."

"Let's suit up then," Foreman said, grabbing one of the weapons from the floor.

"I'm coming too," Chase said, sitting up and pulling his saline line out of his arm. "I'm sick of just laying here."

"Are you sure?" Whitner asked with wide eyes. "It could be dangerous."

Chase nodded. "You might need more blood to make the serum as quickly as possible. I should go."

"We're all going." House gestured to their loose circle. "Chase is getting the bodyguard treatment. That means all hands on deck. Grab your weapons, boys and girl."

As the team scrambled to prepare for their task, House loped off to the corner where the fire axe sat. Wilson glanced around to make sure everyone else was busy before following.

"Hey, what's your problem?" he hissed at House once they were out of hearing. "We found a cure. You should be jumping for joy." He looked down at the cane. "You know, figuratively."

House shrugged. "I'll jump when we've confirmed immunity." He picked up the fire axe by its long handle and held it out to Wilson. "You can take Carla. Have you seen Betsy?"

Wilson grabbed the snow shovel from where it had fallen behind a table and traded it for the axe. "Just remember to be careful," Wilson told House. "You can't take stupid risks now. You'll live through this as long as you don't get hurt."

House hefted the shovel in his hands as if considering its weight. "Right back atcha," he said with a serious look.

Wilson shifted his feet and looked up into House's bright blue eyes. "You know what I'm going to do the minute we get that serum?" he said with a devilish grin.

House raised an eyebrow. "Is it illegal in many states?" He took a step closer into Wilson's space.

Wilson curled his right hand around House's forearm and nodded.

"Are you gonna kiss?" a tiny voice asked from the floor.

Wilson jumped about a foot in the air at the sound of the child's voice. House glared down at the little dark-haired girl, still swaddled in her bedding. She's been nearly hidden in all the blankets.

"Stop. Eavesdropping," House growled.

Lindsey chewed on her lower lip and looked up at them. "But, Dr. Wilson, I—"

"Not now," House snapped. "The adults are trying to save your life."

Wilson sighed. "I'll be right back, okay? Don't worry," he assured her.

Lindsey nodded and retreated back into her nest. House turned to Wilson and twirled the shovel in his free hand. "Now let's find us a lab."

They left the cafeteria armed to the teeth: House and Wilson still dressed in stained scrubs, axe and shovel in hand. Foreman, in his torn lab coat, wielded his spear. Whitner took the rear, wheeling down the hall with her makeshift weapon in her lap. And in the middle of their square was Chase, clutching his thin hospital gown around his gaunt form.

It was slow going at first; Chase was weak on his feet and could only shuffle a few paces before stopping to catch his breath.

"You going to make it, man?" Foreman asked, guiding Chase down the hallway by his arm.

"Yeah," the blond man huffed. "The elevator's just up ahead, right?"

Whitner grunted in confirmation. "Which floor are we going to?" she asked.

Everyone looked to House at the front of the group. "The third floor lab has all the stuff we need," he said, leading the way with his cane and adjusting his grip on the shovel in his free hand.

Wilson nodded. "Maybe we can grab your cell phone from your office while we're down there," he suggested.

"If Cameron doesn't stop us first," Foreman muttered.

Chase seemed to shiver at that, and Wilson put a hand under his other elbow to steady him. They reached the elevator and began their descent.

"Be ready for anything," House warned them as the red numbers ticked down. Five, four, and finally three. The elevator jolted to a stop and the doors dinged open.

Whitner was the first out. "It looks empty," she whispered. The others followed her into the silent halls.

Wilson glanced at his wristwatch. It was late morning, but there was very little light coming in from the windows. They walked slowly down the hall and passed House's glass office. Wilson could see it was pouring rain outside.

Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled. The drum of rainwater on the windows covered the sound of their footsteps. Small favors, Wilson thought, holding the axe in both hands tightly.

They were almost to Wilson's office when the glass Diagnostics Department door swung open behind them.

House was the first to turn around, Betsy at the ready. Wilson and Foreman did the same, twin gasps of surprise escaping their throats. Soon all five of them were facing the ghostly apparition.

"Piece of shit," House muttered.

"I'd lower that if I were you," Tritter said. "Guns trump shovels."

The detective was wearing a dull blue Hazmat suit, his face scowling from behind the protective facemask. In the dim light, he looked more like a robot than a human being. He held a shotgun aimed directly at House's chest.

"How the hell did you get in here?" Foreman hissed.

"Shut up," Tritter answered amicably.

Wilson's eyes shot to the left and spied a piece of metal shining in a flash of lightning. It was a grappling hook dangling there on the balcony.

House let the shovel scrape down onto the floor. "A rescue party usually brings, I don't know, a party," he said carefully.

Tritter ignored him. "Where's J. Whitner?" he asked. "Where's the vaccine?"

House let loose a bark of laughter. "Vaccine? I thought _I_ was the one on drugs."

Whitner wheeled herself forward. "Look," she said, holding her hand out in a calming gesture, "I'm Whitner. Put the gun down and let me explain—"

Tritter's eyes darted to her other hand in her lap, holding the vial of Chase's blood. "Is that it?" he demanded. "Hand it over. House can't do you anymore harm now; I've got him."

House raised a questioning eyebrow at Wilson. He sighed and stepped forward. "We lied. House didn't release this disease, Tritter," Wilson said deliberately. "And we don't have a vaccine. But we might have something else, something just as—"

Tritter clicked the safety off the shotgun. "I don't have time for games," he growled. "Give me the cure now."

"So wait, the only reason you came in here all alone was so you could grab the cure, leave us to the wolves, and ride off into the sunset like a hero?" House jabbed his cane at Tritter's facemask, tapping it against the Plexiglas. "You, sir, are one messed up son of a bitch."

"Yet you still believe that the zombies are coming, and they're going to eat your brain," Tritter said mockingly.

"Not my brain," House said. "Yours." He gestured with his chin to the space behind Tritter, but the detective just laughed.

"Trying to make me turn around? Fat chance," he said.

Wilson turned his head slowly to look into the darkened room on his left, his eyes growing wide. There, illuminated by every few seconds of lightning, was Allison Cameron, swaying side to side and lurching towards the detective.

After nearly a week of rapid decomposition, the ID clipped to her front pocket was Cameron's most distinguishing feature. Her nose and half of her right cheek had rotted away to the bone, and her long brown hair hung from her head in matted clumps. Three ribs jutted out of her torn lab coat, creaking with each step.

"Tritter…" Wilson whispered, though the rest of his warning got stuck in his throat. Everyone else stood silently, mouths open in shock. House just watched.

"Ooooaaaaugh," Cameron said and made a grab at Tritter's suit. The detective whirled around and fired, blowing away half of her left arm in a shower of decayed flesh.

"Jesus Christ!" Foreman screamed, slamming his hands over his ears. The sound of the shotgun was deafening in the echoing hallway.

Cameron fell to her knees for a moment, then dragged herself upright again. "Muawwwwagh," she continued, reaching for Tritter's face.

"She's a zombie!" Whitner screamed. "You have to shoot her in the head!"

"No, this isn't happening," Tritter kept repeating. "This isn't happening."

He fired again and hit her in the chest. Cameron grunted, but didn't slow down. She now had a good grip on his Hazmat helmet, and her bony fingers peeled it away like an orange rind.

"The head!" Wilson shouted. "Go for the head!" He thought about running to Tritter's side and beating back the monster that had been Cameron, but Tritter seemed to be losing control of his shotgun, waving it all over the place.

Cameron wasn't backing off. She bared her rotting teeth and lunged at him again. Tritter managed to block her with the stock of his gun.

"No such thing," he continued repeating. "This isn't happening. There's no such thing!"

Chase looked around wildly. "We can't just stand here," he said. He grabbed the spear from Foreman's numb fingers and leapt forward, his weapon poised to stab Cameron in the belly.

Tritter's gun went off again and Chase fell to the floor.

"No!" Wilson cried. He dropped to his knees and rolled the man over. The wound in his chest was bleeding profusely. Wilson applied pressure and kept an eye on Cameron's movements. "Don't you die," he whispered to Chase. "Don't you dare die now."

Two more hands joined Wilson's in covering Chase's injury. Wilson looked up to see House's gaze fixed on his young charge.

"Breathe, Chase," House coaxed. "Stay with us. Breathe, come on."

Chase's eyelids fluttered as he struggled to stay conscious. Lightning crashed again, and Tritter screamed. Cameron had him by the throat.

Wilson watched, frozen next to the injured Chase, as Cameron dragged the detective across the room and onto the balcony. Tritter's limbs flailed in the bulky Hazmat suit, and his foot kicked at the grappling hook on the concrete rim.

Wilson cursed as he watched the hook teeter and fall to the ground below. He had to avert his eyes when Cameron chewed a large flap of flesh from Tritter's skull. He heard bones snap, and when Wilson looked back, the man was dead in Cameron's grasp.

She looked up blankly and smeared his brain tissue over her lips.

"Gaaauoogh," she moaned, a noise of contentment.

"Chase?" House said. "Chase!?"

Wilson gazed down again at the bloody mess oozing between his and House's fingers. Chase's eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. He was gone.

"God damn it all," Whitner said quietly, bringing a shaky hand to her forehead.

Foreman sighed. "Should I kill Cameron?" he asked, retrieving his spear from the ground.

House rose with some effort and grabbed his cane. "No," he said. "I've got this one."

He picked up his snow shovel and limped his way into the office. Only the slump of his shoulders and the gore on the carpet belied the fact that it wasn't a normal day at work for him. House made his way to the threshold of the balcony, where Cameron was still devouring Tritter's lifeless body.

"Oh, Cameron," House sighed, watching her. "You always did try so hard to please people."

The woman looked up from her feeding and groaned incoherently.

"Yeah," House muttered. "Same here."

One quick swipe and Cameron's headless corpse hit the floor of the rain-soaked balcony.

Wilson turned away at the sight of House hunting through the office. He stood up and looked at Whitner. "Do we have enough of Chase's blood to make a serum?" he asked.

From inside his office, House called, "The cell phone's dead, but the iPod still has juice!"

She rubbed her temples and shook her head. "Not nearly enough," she answered.

"Not even…" Wilson glanced at House standing in the rain, hair plastered against his forehead and whooping with joy at the extra cartridges he'd found on Tritter's body. "Not even one dose?"

Whitner followed his gaze, furrowed her brow and opened her mouth to speak. But she was interrupted by a new moan, this time from Chase.

"Holy shit!" Foreman jumped back from the reanimated body as it reached out for his pant leg. Acting only by instinct, he drove his spear directly into Chase's head, shattering his skull. The body twitched, then stilled.

"He turned?" Wilson gasped. "How…?"

"Guess he wasn't immune after all," House murmured, dripping rainwater in the Diagnostics doorway. "Wilson was right. It was just another infection that slowed down the virus."

"Now what the fuck are we supposed to do?" Whitner sighed. "We have to move soon. The other zombies will have heard those shots."

House hoisted the shotgun against his shoulder. "Looks like the rules have changed," he said. "We're going to kill the horde before they kill us."

He began limping his way back to the elevator.

"Wait!" Wilson flung his hands out, palms up, to show how lost he was. "What's our plan? It's hundreds versus a few dozen."

"We're getting the others," House said without slowing down. "Then we're going to blow this popsicle stand."

Foreman shrugged. "Making a run for it…does seem like the only option left," he said. He picked up House's discarded shovel and followed him to the elevator.

Whitner wheeled herself past Wilson slowly. "Nothing else to do," she echoed. On her way, she dropped the useless vial of Chase's blood to the floor and left it behind.

Wilson glanced at the three bodies on the ground and listened to the rain pounding on the windows. With a sigh, he followed as well.

Once they were safely back in the cafeteria, there was a quick stop at the sink to wash their hands of tainted blood. Then House roused all the sleeping patients and began barking orders.

"Everyone get up. It's time to go. Come on, come on," he chanted, jabbing at sleeping bodies with the tip of his cane. "And does anyone know how to use this thing?" he asked, raising the shotgun over his head.

One nurse stepped forward, timidly lifting her hand in the air. "I was in the Army," she offered.

House tossed her the gun, which she caught. "Let's hope you're not full of shit," he leaned forward to read her nametag, "Barbara."

"House, you don't know how to shoot a gun?" Foreman asked incredulously while helping an old woman to her feet.

House shrugged and picked up his blue backpack. "Give me a blunt object any day," he grunted, shoving items into the bag. "What about you, G? No experience poppin' caps?"

Foreman sighed. "…No," he answered, his voice dejected.

Wilson gazed at the flurry of activity with a heavy heart. Even if they succeeded and made it out of the building, House was still a dead man. Wilson's grip on the bright red fire axe tightened.

He wondered if he could go through with killing his best friend. His…whatever he was. His House, he finally decided. Could he kill his House?

The bundle at his feet shifted and the little dark-haired girl crawled out, rubbing her sleepy eyes. "What's going on, Dr. Wilson?" she asked him.

"Come on, honey," he soothed. "We've got to get ready to leave." He bent down and eased the saline line out of her arm. "How do you feel?"

"I feel fine," Lindsey said, wriggling out of her layers of sheets. "I have to ask you…"

"What is it?" he asked absentmindedly, pressing a tympanic thermometer into her ear and glancing at the reading. Her temperature was back to normal; the broad-spectrum antibiotics must have worked, he mused.

"Will you…"

Wilson reached out to check the pulse on her thin wrist. His fingertips brushed against something, and he examined the skin there.

A bite. Small and scabbed-over, but the teeth marks were unmistakable. Human. Or something like it.

"You…" he stuttered. "You were bitten?"

Her bright green eyes gazed up at Wilson. "Will you protect me from the monsters?" she whispered quietly.


	7. Chapter 7

Wilson forced his brain to stay in doctor mode. "When did you get bitten, honey?" he asked the little girl, trying to keep the quaver out of his voice.

Lindsey lifted one thin shoulder in a small shrug. She lowered her eyes to her lap and kept them fastened on her hands.

"Sweetie," Wilson said, the edge of panic creeping into his tone, "you have to tell me. It's very important."

Very gently, very slowly, he took hold of her chin and lifted her face until her gaze met his again.

"Who bit you?" he asked.

Foreman, who was rushing by with a roll of bandages in his hands, stopped at the sight of Wilson kneeling on the floor, speaking quietly to the child. Wilson saw him standing behind Lindsey's shoulder with one eyebrow raised in question.

"My mom," Lindsey mumbled. "She was…" Her sea-green eyes fell again, and she fidgeted her hands in her lap.

Wilson looked up at Foreman, the question clear on his face.

Foreman shook his head and made a slicing motion across his neck with the edge of his hand. Wilson closed his eyes and let out a sigh. So the girl's mother was dead twice over.

"She's been here with us for nearly a week," Foreman said, pointing to the girl.

"Am I going to die?" Lindsey asked, glancing between the two doctors.

"No, no, you're going to be fine." Wilson wrapped his arms around her and let her press her cheek against his chest. "Everything's going to be fine," he whispered to her dark hair.

Foreman blinked. "You mean she's…?"

"Go get Whitner," Wilson ordered him, still holding the girl as if she would disappear if he didn't. "And find House. Where is…?" He looked around the bustling cafeteria, but he couldn't spot the lanky figure. "House?" he called.

The chains on the hallway doors rattled and Wilson looked over his shoulder to see Nurse Barbara locking it up again. She looked up at his shout.

"He just left," she said with a shrug. In her free hand, she still held the newfound shotgun. "He said to wait for his directions."

"Son of a…" Wilson gave the girl one last squeeze and scrambled to his feet. "Hold on," he told her. "I've got to—"

Whitner skidded to a stop in front of him, blocking his path to the door. "Foreman said this kid's been bitten?" she said breathlessly. By the wild look in her eyes, she apparently hadn't heard the whole story. She held her weapon tightly in her lap.

"Yeah but—" Wilson glanced at the shut door. What the hell was House doing?

Foreman caught up with the female doctor, panting for breath. "You didn't let me finish," he snapped at her. "Wilson, tell her!"

"House is gone," Wilson said instead, trying to push past the two doctors. House couldn't have gotten far, he assured himself. He frantically looked around for his fire axe.

"Who cares about House?" Foreman snorted, holding him by the elbows. "This kid's immune!"

Whitner looked down at Lindsey sitting on the floor as if she hadn't noticed Lindsey there before. "Seriously?" she exclaimed.

"Yes!" Wilson shouted, throwing off Foreman's hold. "But House doesn't know that! And now he's gone off alone, thinking he's going to turn into a zombie!"

Foreman held up a hand to silence Wilson. "Wait, House was bitten?"

Whitner hissed out a breath of air. "The bastard's probably got some suicidal stunt planned."

"I need to find him," Wilson said, locating the axe on the ground and grabbing it. "You two, get Lindsey to the lab and make that serum as fast as—"

There was a sudden crackling noise, loud and echoing, that made everyone jump in surprise. It was followed by two thumps and a chuckle.

"Is this thing on?" a voice boomed over the PA system. "It better be, because I just pulled a Moses through a sea of zombies to get to the nearest nurses' station."

"House?" Wilson looked up at the loudspeakers attached to the ceiling, his brow furrowed.

"I'm betting some idiot is trying to talk back to me," House grumbled. "Just a reminder: this thing only works one way."

Wilson rolled his eyes, muttering a few choice words about House's own intelligence under his breath.

"This message is for all living and breathing beings still trapped within the walls of PPTH," House continued in a mocking Public Service Announcement voice. "Follow the nurse with the big gun. She's going to get you down to the first floor and, hopefully, out the front door. I'm going to cover you with," he dragged out the last word, and Wilson could hear the _click click click_ of an iPod being scrolled through, "the best classic rock hits to get you through the workday."

"He's going to broadcast music over the PA system?" Foreman frowned in confusion.

Whitner clapped her hands once, her mouth curving into a smile. "The noise will confuse the zombies," she cried. "They won't be able to hear us coming. Brilliant!"

"Get ready, people with pulses," House said. "This first song goes out to James from oncology." There was a long pause, followed by a low screech of feedback. Every person in the room was frozen, faces upturned towards the sound.

Finally, House's voice returned, low and hesitant. "Sorry we'll never…have that talk, Jimmy." There was a burst of moaning on House's end, and then one last warning:

"Now go."

House's voice was replaced by a pounding beat. Stomp, stomp, clap. Stomp, stomp, clap.

"I hope this works!" Whitner shouted over Queen.

The small crowd of displaced patients and employees began moving towards the front doors, armed with meager weapons of every shape.

**_We will, we will rock you._**

Nurse Barbara shouted instructions as she ushered them into the hallway. "Come on, let's go, keep together, slow and steady."

Foreman shook Wilson by the shoulder, waking him from the frozen shock of hearing House's last words. "We have to leave," Foreman said. "Everyone's going." He grabbed a spear from the floor.

"I'm not leaving without House," Wilson said. Lindsey stood at his side, her small hands clutching at his pink scrubs.

Whitner studied his solemn face for a moment. "I'll go with you to the lab. I can still make the serum," she said. "But how will you get it to House before…?"

"I'll figure it out." Wilson dodged a man pushing past him. "We're running out of time. Let's go." He grasped Lindsey's wrist in his right hand, reserving his left for the axe. "Stay close to me, sweetheart," he told her.

**_You've got blood on your face  
A big disgrace _**

Foreman led them out of the cafeteria, following the group of survivors. "House still has the elevator key," he said. "We'll have to take the stairs."

They moved towards the stairs en masse, dodging zombies when they could, bludgeoning them into submission when they couldn't. House had been right; the loud music helped mask their footsteps. The zombies gathered around the loudspeakers, trying to find the source of the sounds. They moaned in confusion at the devices, and were easy to dispatch while so distracted.

Wilson came upon one such creature around a corner. "Shut your eyes," he directed Lindsey before decapitating it. The girl kept her face pressed into his pant leg until the moaning stopped. Then they moved on.

It was slow going, especially considering the elderly patients in the group. Foreman moved to help an old woman to the stairwell, but she batted him away.

"I can walk on my own," she said with a scowl.

"Hey…" a voice called to Wilson. He looked back to see Whitner in her wheelchair, sitting at the top of the stairs. "This gal ain't so lucky," she said grudgingly.

Wilson turned his axe over to Lindsey. "Can you hang onto this? Is it too heavy?"

The little girl staggered under the weight, but held it firmly. "I've got it," she panted.

Together, Foreman and Wilson were able to carry Whitner, chair and all, down the first flight of steps. Wilson gasped at the pain flaring in his ankle and his ribs, but he kept going. Without the researcher, he had no hope of making the serum that would save House's life.

"Zombies on your six," Whitner warned Wilson once they reached the floor.

Wilson dropped the wheels to the ground and grabbed his weapon from Lindsey. The entire entourage, young and old, sick and healthy, was engaged in battling a crowd of the undead.

The old woman who'd refused Foreman's help was currently bashing in a zombie's skull with a brick. The nurse was proving to be an excellent marksman, keeping a steady pace after each headshot. She paused to reload, not noticing three zombies coming up behind her.

"Barbara!" Wilson shouted. "They're coming for you, Barbara!"

The woman quickly whirled and took care of two of them with a single shot before finishing off the third. She gave Wilson a small salute in thanks.

Over the loudspeakers, the Bee Gees' _ Staying Alive_ began to blast at full volume.

"I hate House's sense of humor," Foreman muttered as he hefted his spear.

"I like it; it's got a nice beat," Whitner cackled, jamming her improvised shovel weapon into another's throat.

Wilson and Foreman joined the fray with a yell. A few feet to the left, a surgeon screamed as a zombie bit him. Wilson moved towards him, but the man was overpowered before Wilson could help.

"Lindsey," Wilson called over his shoulder as he beheaded another zombie, "how are you doing?"

The girl was curled into a ball on Whitner's lap, her face hidden against the woman's neck. She waved her hand to show she'd heard, but didn't move otherwise.

**_Feel the city breakin' and everybody's shakin'  
And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive_**

"Where's the nearest lab?" Wilson called over the racket.

"There's one on this floor," Whitner shouted back. "It'll have to do. Come on." She began wheeling down the hall, carrying Lindsey as well.

Wilson looked around at the carnage around him, both human and zombie bodies strewn at his feet. Barbara's shotgun chambered with a reassuring _shh shht_ sound.

"I'm taking these people downstairs," the nurse told him. "I'll try to kill as many of these monsters as I can. Good luck."

"Thank you." Wilson turned to Foreman, marveling at how much black fluid was streaked across his coat. "Ready?"

Foreman sighed and shook his head. "Look, I want to find House, but these people need help too." He set his mouth in a grim line. "Sorry. But I'm responsible for the bigger group."

Wilson blinked once, but nodded. "I understand. Be careful."

"You too," Foreman called, bringing up the rear as the crowd sped down the next flight of stairs. The Bee Gees played on.

Wilson followed his remaining allies to the laboratory at the end of the hall. After some creative jiggering with the doorknob, the door slid open and they entered the room.

It had remained untouched by the chaos of the past few days, since the door had been shut. All of the equipment was laid out as if it were a normal day at work.

Wilson grabbed a clean syringe from a nearby rack. "Sit down here, honey," he told Lindsey, pushing a tall stool in her direction.

"I'm afraid of needles," she said slowly, eyeing the one in his hand.

Wilson took a deep breath. "You know what we'll have to do then?"

"What?" she asked, slipping onto the seat.

Wilson grabbed her arm and slid the needle home without preamble.

"Hey!" Lindsey said, more in shock than pain.

"Is it going smoothly?" Whitner asked, rummaging around in some cabinets.

Wilson clipped a collection bag into place and watched the bright red blood flowing into it. "Yeah, we're good," he said, flashing a thumbs up.

"I'll need to run it through the synthesizer," Whitner murmured to herself, wheeling around and booting up various machines. "I'll need at least a pint of blood, and depending on how long it takes to isolate her unique antibody, we should have the serum soon."

"Good," Wilson said. "I just need to get House."

Whitner pushed her sweaty bangs out of her eyes. "Go find him. Hopefully, by the time you track him down, I'll be done here."

Wilson looked between her and the girl. "You sure you'll be fine alone?"

She raised an eyebrow and motioned to her shovel, leaning against the wall. "I'm sure."

Wilson licked his lips. "Whitner, just to be safe," he said, "can you make two doses?"

"Yes, of course." She waved him away. "Now get out of here."

Not needing to be told again, Wilson grabbed the axe and left the lab. His first instinct was to go downstairs; it would have been smart of House to get closer to safety. But House wasn't thinking about his own safety. He was thinking of the best way to get himself killed.

Wilson eyed the staircase. House was somewhere on the upper levels, he could feel it. Drawing in a deep breath, he began running up the steps, his sprained foot complaining all the way.

The heart of the horde, that's where House would be. And that's where Wilson was heading.

He climbed and climbed until he heard it: the droning, rumbling wheeze of a hundred undead. He had reached the top floor. There was no turning back. The Bee Gees faded away slowly.

Wilson's hands felt sweaty against the smooth wooden handle of his axe. He hefted it in his hands and tried to calm his racing heart. _Thriller_ began play loudly over the intercoms and Wilson gave a short laugh.

"After I save House's life," he said, "I'm going to kill him."

Without giving himself the chance to think about backing down, he spun around the corner, facing a limitless sea of zombies head-on. At the sight of fresh meat, the creatures screeched and moved towards him, shuffling slowly on their unsteady feet.

"I don't have time for this," Wilson growled at the huge horde. "So let's make this quick, okay ugly?"

The nearest zombie moaned at him. Wilson killed it in one blow.

"Whoa, not bad," he mumbled to himself. "But let's not get cocky, Jimmy." He readied his axe once more. "Just aim for the outfield."

Thwack, breathe, thwack, breathe. Wilson fell into a painful rhythm, his cracked ribs aching with every swing. More distressing was the pile of corpses rising all around him. Soon, he thought, the headless bodies would reach the ceiling and he'd never be able to find House.

"Time for something new," he grunted, decapitating one last zombie. "I was never any good at track and field but…" And he broke into a run, pushing his way through the seething masses.

The slow-moving zombies didn't have time to respond to his quick escape. As soon as one realized its prey was right there, Wilson had already run by, ducking under its arms.

Michael Jackson was singing with abandon, and suddenly Wilson heard it, not booming over the loudspeakers, but nearby, more tinny. He swiveled his head around until he saw the nurses' station. Just as he thought, there was House's iPod, hooked up to a portable speaker, and playing into the PA system microphone.

"House!" Wilson shouted, elbowing his way past more groaning monsters. "Are you still here?"

There was no answer, but he did see a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye. House's scrubs?

Wilson wasted no time in chasing the figure into one of the therapy rooms. Sure enough, it was House's pale blue shirt, but House wasn't in it. Instead, the shirt was clutched in the hand of one of the zombies, a man missing half his greenish skin.

"You bastards," Wilson cried, striking the creature in the head with no finesse at all. "What did you do to him!?"

A hollow knocking sound broke through the insufferable moaning, and Wilson turned. "House?" he called, looking around the zombie-infested room. He couldn't see another living thing.

"In here, you idiot!" House's voice called, muffled and metallic. Wilson furrowed his brow and looked around again, pausing to dispatch a zombie that got too close.

"Where?" he asked louder.

There was a clang of metal on metal, and Wilson jumped in surprise as the door of the hypobaric chamber at his side popped open. House stuck his head out and looked around the room.

"Are you crazy?" he yelled upon seeing the massive crowd of zombies. "Get your ass in here!"

Faced with a growing number of foes in the small room, Wilson had no other option but to drop his axe to the floor and crawl into the torpedo-shaped tube of steel as fast as he could. It was a tight fit for two full-grown men, but he squeezed next to House just as the other doctor slammed the door shut.

The first thing House did was smack Wilson upside the head.

"Ow!" the oncologist yelped.

"What the hell?" House continued shouting. "What are you doing here? Why aren't you with the others on the ground floor?"

"I came to save you," Wilson said petulantly, rubbing the back of his head. "You're _welcome_."

"The last thing I need," House growled, "is for you to save me."

Wilson opened his mouth to retort, but he caught his first glimpse of House close up, face to face, their noses mere inches away.

"You look like hell," he blurted out. In the short time since he'd last seen House, the virus had taken its toll. There were dark circles under House's blue eyes, and a sheen of sweat had appeared on his forehead. Wilson looked down at House's shirtless body; bruises were forming on his skin.

"I've had better days," House grimaced. He took a sudden, sharp breath and his body seemed to tighten, his eyes squeezing shut. A hiss of pain escaped through his clenched teeth.

Wilson touched his shoulder tentatively, an awkward movement in such a small space. "Are you…?"

House gasped for breath. "You know that breakthrough pain I sometimes get in my leg?" he asked. Wilson nodded. "It feels like that," House said haltingly, "except all over."

Wilson slipped his arms around House's neck, cradling his head against his chest, letting him ride out the pain. "I'm getting you out of here," he murmured into House's hair. "We found an immune subject, for real this time. Whitner's making the serum right now."

House panted against his neck. "You lying to me?" he asked in a low voice.

Wilson shook his head and held House closer.

House sighed. "I don't know if I can…walk," he said, his breathing becoming more labored.

"I'll carry you," Wilson answered, fighting the tightness in his throat.

"What about a weapon?" House pressed. "How do you plan to get by the nasties?"

"I…I don't know," Wilson stuttered. "I'll think of something. We'll make it, I promise."

House tilted his head back. "Wilson." When Wilson didn't meet his eyes, he grabbed his chin and forced his head back up. "Listen to me," House whispered. "My organs are shutting down. I can't…I'm useless to you out there."

Wilson kept shaking his head, trying to focus on the gray metal enclosing them like a coffin. Trying not to focus on the wetness sliding down his cheek. "No, we'll be fine," he said.

Outside the chamber, the zombies moaned loudly, scratching their fingernails against the metal siding in the vain hope of getting to their prey.

"You have to leave me here," House continued quietly. "It's okay. I want you to go."

"Shut. Your fucking. Mouth," Wilson hissed and pressed forward, sealing his lips to House's. Wilson swallowed the wail of protest and delved deeper, kissing him thoroughly despite scratching stubble, savoring even the stale taste of House's mouth, thick with illness.

In the tiny space inside the chamber, Wilson could feel the length of their bodies aligning, even as House tried to push him away. House's skin was warm and clammy beneath his hands as they roved possessively across his back. He could feel their hearts hammering against each other.

Wilson felt no guilt in overpowering the sick man, or in his moan of contentment.

Finally, House managed to wedge his hands between their chests and shove Wilson back an inch or two. The rage on House's pale face was evident, but Wilson couldn't hide his smug eyes.

"You…" House began.

"You listen to me," Wilson interrupted, poking a fingertip into House's chest to emphasize his point. "I'm not leaving without you. So unless you want to spend eternity trapped in here, undead with me forever, you will get off your cross and let me give you the fucking cure!"

House raised his eyes up to the ceiling of the chamber and sighed heavily. "Fine. But if we live through this, I'm going to kill you."

"Same here," Wilson snarled. "Now use the brain God gave you and think of a way out of here that doesn't involve losing body parts."

With a huff of impatience, House raised a hand to his sweaty brow. "I had a plan," he said, "but…it didn't really work out."

"What?"

"See those oxygen tanks?" House pointed through the porthole window in the side of the chamber. "I opened all their valves, and they're leaking slowly."

"Okay…" Wilson gave an abbreviated shrug. "I don't see where you're going with this."

"Well, I _was_ going to go up in a blaze of glory," House sighed. He fished around in the pocket of his scrub pants and produced a cigarette lighter.

"You were going to…blow yourself up?" Wilson gasped.

"Along with about a hundred zombies," House said brightly. "But alas," he shook the empty lighter, "I couldn't get one spark out of this thing. Damn nurses and their poorly-stocked handbags."

"Hence the diving into the nearest hypobaric chamber?" Wilson supplied.

"Yep," House said, popping his mouth on the P. "That's as far as this God-given brain got. Sorry." He winced as another spasm of pain wracked his body.

Wilson peered out of the round window, eyes flicking around the room. "I've got an idea," he said.

Minutes later, House was leaning against the outer wall of the chamber, keeping the zombies at bay with the fire axe, while Wilson frantically searched the supply cabinets.

"Find anything?" House shouted over his shoulder. "My arms feel like they're going to fall off."

"Give me one more—" Wilson stopped and gave a cry of joy. "Yes! Got it." He pulled out the bottle of rubbing alcohol and uncapped it. Taking hold of his shirt sleeve, he pulled until the fabric tore. Wilson twisted the patch of pink material and shoved it into the open container.

"Nice little Molotov cocktail you got there, comrade," House grunted, swinging weakly at a zombie to keep it at a distance. "But what are you going to light it with?"

"You know the physical therapist who's always trying to have lunch with me?" Wilson asked, reaching back into the cupboard. "She believes in aromatherapy." With a flourish, he produced a pack of scented candles and a box of matches. He held the box up to his ear and shook, grinning at the clattering sound inside. "Thank you, Jennifer."

"Hell, if this works, you can _marry_ Jennifer," House threw back. "Now let's light it up."

"Got the key?" Wilson asked, striking a match and burning the tip of the long wick of fabric.

House nodded. "You ready to run for your life?" he retorted.

"It's only a few feet to the elevator," Wilson said, moving to House's left side. He wrapped one arm around House's waist, the homemade bomb burning in his other hand. "Lean on me," he ordered.

Together they took off through the crowd of zombies, waving axe or fire if the creatures approached. The final chorus of _Thriller _was blasting through the floor.

"Almost there," Wilson said through gritted teeth. The strange three-legged race ended with both men falling into the waiting maintenance elevator.

"Throw it!" House shouted, reaching up to shove the key into the slot.

Wilson chucked the flaming bottle right over the head of an oncoming zombie. The alcohol hit one of the oxygen tanks and exploded, silencing the iPod forever.

"Get us out of here!" Wilson yelled as another tank caught fire. The second explosion rocked through the floor, and Wilson could see zombies engulfed in flames, their limbs burning and falling to pieces.

House slapped a button, and the metal doors slammed shut on a zombie's arm. There was a horrible cracking sound, and the appendage snapped off and fell to the floor, twitching.

As more tanks began to detonate in a chain reaction, Wilson hit the button for the eighth floor. "We need to get back to Whitner before the whole place blows."

"Wilson." House breathed in heavily. "I have to tell you…"

"What?" Wilson looked up, alarmed at the prospect of more bad news.

House placed his hand over Wilson's battered palm where it lay on the floor. "That was hot," he said with a smirk.

Wilson fought the heat the threatened to creep up his neck to his face. "Thanks," he said.

The elevator arrived at the eighth floor, and the doors opened with a happy chime. The two men struggled to their feet and stepped over the undead arm. Supporting each others' weight, they limped down the hall.

"You sure there's going to be enough serum for the both of us?" House asked.

"Yeah," Wilson said, giving him a small smile. "It's all taken care of. We just have to—" He pushed open the laboratory door. "Oh god."

The room was in shambles: tables were overturned, equipment was smashed, and blood was smeared on the floor. Small handprints in red.

"Oh _god_," Wilson repeated. "Lindsey? Whitner!?"

A low moan came from behind a long counter strewn with microscopes. Wilson took the fire axe from House's grip.

Leaving House leaning against a table, Wilson slowly rounded the counter, axe at the ready. There, on the floor, was Whitner, surrounded by dozens of zombies and their severed heads.

Her shovel was still in her hand. Her wheelchair, a few feet away on its side. Her legs, curled uselessly on the ground. Her eyes, wide and unseeing.

Her torso, ripped open.

"Wilson…" she wheezed, blood bubbling over her lips.

He rushed to her side, discarding his weapon on the floor. "Hold on, Whitner. You're going to be fine," he babbled, looking around wildly for something to stop the bleeding.

"Bull…shit," she croaked. Her left hand flopped against the tile. "Too…many. The girl…"

"Lindsey?" Wilson whispered.

"Safe…" Whitner breathed, and then closed her eyes. Her fingers uncurled and the shovel fell from her hand.

Wilson picked up her wrist and felt for a pulse, but couldn't find one.

"I'm sorry," House said quietly from behind him.

"This is all my fault," Wilson said, smoothing her hair, matted with blood, away from her face. "I left her here alone."

"Not alone," House insisted. "The girl, the one who's immune. We have to find her."

"Yeah." Wilson nodded, his face blank. "But first, I have to do something for Whitner." He reached out and took her shovel, holding it reverently in his hands. He rose to his feet and placed the sharpened edge of the shovel against her white throat.

House limped forward a few steps, grunting with pain. "You don't want me to do it?" he offered.

"No," Wilson said in a dead voice. "I've got this one." He leaned forward with all his strength and shut his eyes at the sound of her neck snapping.

There was a light touch from behind: House's hands, running up his arms. They stopped at Wilson's shaking shoulders and both men stood there a moment, saying nothing.

"Help," a small voice called into the silence. Then pounding. "Help me!"

"Lindsey?" Wilson's head snapped up.

"Over here," House said, shoving away a table that was blocking a cabinet door.

"Don't let her see—" Wilson began, rushing forward to open the little closet. There, sitting in the darkness, was the little girl. Wilson forced a smile. "Are you hurt, sweetheart?"

"N-no," she said with a shake of her head. "I'm fine." Wilson carefully pulled her out and held her in his arms, facing away from the other side of the room where the bodies lay.

House sighed, then gasped as another wave of pain struck his body. He leaned against a busted chair and ran a hand through his hair. "Without Whitner's know-how, I'm not sure if we can make the serum," he said.

Wilson hesitated before perching Lindsey on one hip and wrapping a hand around House's bare bicep. "She's carrying the cure," he said softly. "We need to get her out of here, no matter what. If this disease spreads, people will need her."

"Dr. Wilson?" Lindsey spoke against his neck. "Dr. Whitner gave me something before she said goodbye."

The child fished around in the pocket of her ragged hospital gown and finally displayed two capped syringes.

Wilson stared at the needles for a moment before covering his mouth and stifling a choked sob. "Thank god," he said, shutting his eyes against the tears.

"Come on," House said gently, a tone that Wilson had never witnessed from his friend before. "I'll shoot you if you—"

A loud explosion rocked the building, and they were all thrown to the floor.

"What was that?" Lindsey yelled, clapping her hands over her ears.

"The fire must be spreading," House said, pushing himself off the floor with a cry of pain. "There are a million flammable things in this hospital. We have to bust out of here before the whole place goes up in flames." He grabbed the two syringes from the ground and held them tightly.

"The elevator!" Wilson shouted, supporting House with one arm and holding Lindsey with the other. Smoke was already pouring through the halls, choking them with the acrid smell. It was so thick, Wilson had to navigate by memory instead of sight, and pray that no zombies attacked their weapon-less party.

Kicking the severed arm into the hall, Wilson jabbed a button and the elevator doors closed. He pressed the button for the ground floor, and the elevator descended. Another explosion roared above them. Wilson set Lindsey on her feet.

"Come on, I'll inject you," Wilson said, taking a needle from House's hand and reaching for his elbow.

"In case you haven't caught on yet," House panted against his shoulder, "I'm in love with you."

"Yeah." Wilson grinned. "I figured that out." He pressed the needle into House's vein and pushed the plunger. "Okay?" he questioned, pulling the spent syringe free.

"Can't tell yet. Everything hurts. Here, your turn." He took Wilson's arm and copied his actions. "Don't you have anything to say while we're cheating death?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

"I thought we were going to wait until this was all over," Wilson said with a smirk, "before we…talked."

House withdrew the needle from Wilson's arm, his grin widening. "I hope you know I'm going to talk to you all day."

"Uh, guys?" Lindsey said. "We're here." The elevator dinged.

"Okay, honey. We're almost done." Wilson picked her up again. "It's just a few feet to the…"

The doors opened.

"Oh crap," House muttered.

It seemed the remaining zombies had been flushed out of the upper levels by the conflagration and had congregated in the lobby. Some were still on fire, lurching around and burning everything they touched.

"I didn't bring a weapon," Wilson whispered. "We'll never make it…"

"This would be a great time to say 'I love you too, House,'" House said as the horde drew closer.

Just then, a zombie's head exploded.

"All right!" a voice whooped. "Point and shoot, just like Duck Hunt!" The zombie fell, revealing the figure behind it.

"Foreman?" House and Wilson exclaimed in unison.

"You came back?"

"You're _alive_?"

Foreman took aim and dispatched another zombie. "You guys going to sit in the elevator all day, or would you like to take advantage of my timely heroics?"

"The timely one!" House said, limping into the lobby on his own.

"House, your leg?" Wilson asked, following quickly, Lindsey safe in his arms.

House threw him a smirk. "Feels great."

Foreman cleared them a path to the front door, hitting zombies with the butt of the shotgun at times, blowing them away at others. Finally, at the glass doors, he turned and steadied it against his shoulder.

"Run fast," he warned as he squeezed the trigger.

An oxygen tank in the hallway ignited and a fireball swept through the first floor. Wilson grabbed House's arm and ran towards the parking lot, cradling the little girl against his chest and feeling the heat of the explosion at his back.

Foreman sprinted next to him. "Get down!" he yelled just as the whole hospital fell behind them. Wilson threw himself onto the asphalt, dragging House and Lindsey with him. He held them against his body as a searing hot blast of air blew over them, followed by a thick cloud of dust.

After what seemed like an eternity, the loud roar of crumbling concrete ceased and Wilson looked up. PPTH was nothing more than a smoldering pile of rubble.

They were covered in dust from head to toe. Lindsey was coughing violently, Foreman was scrubbing at his face, and House was rubbing his eyes.

"Wow," House said, trying to speak past the grime that coated his lips. "I can't believe we made—"

Wilson leaned forward with a small whimper and slammed his mouth over House's, silencing him effectively. They remained that way, kissing despite the dirt, cupping each others' faces in their hands like they couldn't let go.

When he finally pulled away, Wilson leaned his forehead against House's. "I love you too, House," he whispered. "Of course I love you too."

House grinned. "I might still be contagious," he pointed out.

"Don't care," Wilson said, leaning in for more.

"Hate to interrupt," Foreman broke in, "but we have company."

Wilson looked up to see a handful of confused and dusty police officers coming towards them.

"All of you, uh, hands in the air," one called, groping for his gun.

"Yeah, right," House said.

Wilson soon found himself hauled into the backseat of an unlocked police cruiser with House beside him. Lindsey jumped into the passenger seat and Foreman slid into the driver's side. He yanked away a panel from under the steering wheel and fiddled with some wires.

"Come on, come on," House chanted, watching the cops' slow approach. "You don't have a criminal record for nothing!"

The engine roared to life, and Foreman pumped his fist in the air. "Hold tight," he said as he put the car in gear. With a squeal of tires, they sped out of the parking lot, knocking over some wooden barricades.

Foreman was laughing his head off. A few blocks later, he slowed to stop at a red light. "I just stole a cop car!" he said, still in hysterics.

"Who cares?" House said. "We defeated the zombie menace and saved New Jersey. We're heroes!"

Wilson glanced out the window at the electronics store on the corner. "Uh, House?"

"Will they give us medals?" Lindsey asked, twisted around in her seat.

House nodded firmly. "They sure will, kid. And plenty of money."

"House?" Wilson tried again.

"'I killed the zombies.' There is no better pick-up line," Foreman said with a smug smile. "Hey, anyone want to stop for some food?"

"Yeah, I'm starving. Let's stop at that joint with the—"

"House!" Wilson snapped, grabbing him by the arm.

"What?" House followed his gaze to the storefront window. A handful of televisions were all broadcasting the same thing. "Oh," House said. "A horror movie. That's creepy."

"No…" Wilson opened the door and slowly got out of the car.

"Hey!" House called, slipping out of the car as well. Foreman and Lindsey followed, leaving the car to idle on the empty street.

"Not a movie," Wilson murmured, pressing a hand against the glass window.

The same image flickered on the screens: people shuffling slowly, their rotting skin peeling from their faces, their moaning echoing through the streets. In the background, flush against the evening sky, stood the Empire State building.

"Holy…" Foreman whispered.

"Get back in the car," House said. "We've got some work to do."

The End…?


	8. Epilogue

December 21, 2012.

She leans against a jagged moss-covered boulder on the side of the mountain. It is quiet here. There are no birds, no sounds of animals of any kind. There is only the wind whistling through the needles of evergreens and the tall, uncut grass. This quiet place used to be called, without any trace of irony: America, the land of the free. 

There is no more America. It died long ago.

The cool breeze plays with the girl's hair, winding it around the crown of her head and across her face. She waits a moment, just to catalog the strange sensation of something natural, before brushing the hair off her forehead.

Her hair is short, cropped for safety and not for beauty. Her clothes are old and worn, many sizes too large. The olive green jacket with its many pockets is warm enough, though; a gift to herself, taken from a still-warm body of a soldier.

They are all soldiers now, she thinks. Fighters without a country.

She bends to grab a dried leaf from the dirt at her booted feet, peeling away its veins with delicate fingers. She doesn't remember much of the old world. (She was just a child then.) But she does know the ultimate twist of fate that changed the order of things.

America, which had always hoarded itself away, doling out its strength like a hunch-backed miser, had started to crumble. And before She could even open her mouth to form the words to the rest of the world, America couldn't ask. She was beyond help.

There was nothing left to do but close the borders. Every single country in the world, from the impoverished colonies to the industrial giants, came together to accomplish the most impressive task in the history of global politics, to bury the old United States.

Canada and Mexico, overwhelmed by refugees in the first year of the outbreak, didn't have the capacity for anymore goodwill. They lined their borders with armed guards, one every few yards, with orders to shoot on sight, whether the trespasser was human or otherwise.

As for the remainder of the nation's coastline, floating patrols from around the globe took turns gazing at the empty stretches of beaches, on alert for things that didn't need air to breathe. Alaska, now called the Inuit Nation, did their part too, along with the newly formed Kingdom of Hawai'i.

It was a different world now. The girl knew that much.

The noise of shuffling feet rose up from the path below, and she dropped the leaf she had torn apart to reach inside her jacket, feeling the steel rod in her hidden pocket. 

The figure appeared from behind a tree and she sighed in relief. "Don't go sneaking up on me like that, J."

J smiled in return and shrugged. "I was making a racket. When I'm sneaking, you won't be able to tell." He took a deep breath and looked out from the outcropping, down into the mist-laden valley below. "What do you think, L?" he asked, jutting his chin to include the entire picturesque scene.

L snorted. "It's like a freakin' postcard," she said, folding her arms across her chest.

J came over to her side and leaned against the rock as well. He stuffed his callused hands into his black coat, another military remnant stolen from some shelled-out base.

"Watch your language," he said fondly, nudging her thin shoulder with his own.

She looked up at him with a scowl. "I'm going to be fourteen soon," she growled. "And I've heard H say worse things than that."

J tipped his head in agreement. "Doesn't mean you have to follow his less-than-ideal example," he chided. He pushed off the rock and jerked his head in the direction from which he'd come. "We found some canned stuff in the kitchens. We're lucky this old ski resort was locked up when the outbreaks began to spread."

With one last look down the snow-patched mountain, L turned to follow. "What was this place called?" she asked. 

"Maine," J said, his voice a little strained. "Do you like it here?"

The girl jogged a few steps down the steep path to reach J's side, her breath appearing as puffs of smokein the cold air . "I still don't understand why we're stopping in Postcard Land," she said, her tone bordering on a whine. It made the man smile, remembering her as the small child she still sometimes was. "Shouldn't we head back down to the Swamp? E might need us." 

J shook his head; it was hard for him to imagine that the Swamp was all that was left of that capital city, glowing with marble monuments and museums in white.

"E has things under control there," he said gently. "And if anything major happens, he knows how to get a hold of us." He kept walking down the sloping hill and fought the urge to reach over and ruffle the girl's dark hair between his fingers. She wouldn't appreciate that. As much as she was still his little girl, she was growing to be more like H in many ways.

As if reading his mind, H's lanky form came into view at the bottom of the path, a bright spark still resting in his bright eyes.

"Hey kid." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "Guess what I found in the pantry?"

L blinked. "Don't joke about that," she warned, her widening smile betraying her cynicism.

H shrugged and rested both hands on the top of his cane. "Unlike you, I went to school," he said with a raised eyebrow. "And I can sure as hell read a label that says _sweetened condensed milk_."

The girl gave a whoop of joy and was off like a shot, running down the hill at breakneck speed past both men. "I'm going to crack one open right now!" she called back to them over her shoulder.

J waved her off with a grin before redirecting his gaze to the other man. "She'll get sick if she drinks the whole thing," he scolded, the smile still in place.

H limped the two steps that separated them and wrapped an arm around J's waist, giving it a clinical squeeze. "She could use the calories," he murmured. "We all could."

J sighed and allowed H to run a hand through his brown hair, lightly brushing the silver streaks at his temples. It was true; they had both skipped many meals in the last five years to save food for their young charge.

He lifted his own hand to H's cheek, tracing the deep, curved scar there, a reminder of the danger they had lived through for the past five years. "Is everything taken care of?" he asked, changing the subject.

H nodded. "I called Foreman on the SAT phone. He said the chopper should be here tonight. Apparently, the South Africans are very antsy."

J rested his forehead on H's shoulder and closed his eyes. "She's going to hate us for doing this," he whispered.

"She's going to be _safe_," H stressed, combing his hand through the hair on the back of his lover's head. "As long as they need her blood as an insurance policy, they'll keep her in Cape Town, away from all of this."

"She's…" J swallowed thickly. "I'm going to miss her."

Dry lips brushed against his ear. "I know. But we're old men now. We can't keep her here with us. She'd be all alone when we're gone."

A wry smile twisted J's lips. "Who are you calling old, House?"

House tipped back the other man's chin and wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes. "The guy I love, Wilson."

It felt nice to hear it said aloud: the truth, and their old names. That sort of thing had stopped being practical since the fighting had begun. Better to not know whose body you had just seen get torn apart, or who you'd have to decapitate to save your own life. People went by letters now, code for the names they'd once had. It was a coping mechanism, a way to turn a human life into something less.

The thudding of booted feet returned, and L held the punctured can of milk aloft in triumph. "J! H! Are you going to help me drink this or not?" she said with a laugh.

The two men slowly broke apart. Wilson smiled at her indulgently, trying to memorize the sight of her glowing face. It was going to be their last night together, the last time their little messed-up family would be whole.

"Yeah, sweetheart," he said. "Let's go sit in the old lodge. I'll build a fire in the fireplace."

L rolled her shining green eyes. "I told you, I'm a big girl now. You can stop calling me sweetheart."

"Okay, Lindsey," Wilson said, his voice cracking on the last syllable. He bit his lip, but the girl hadn't noticed. She was already running across the lot, daring them to follow.

"Last one there's probably a cripple!" she shouted.

When she was out of earshot, Wilson did cry then, burying his face in the crook of House's neck, breathing in the comforting scent of his salty skin. But his sobs stopped when he felt House's chest rattle with a sniff.

He looked up. House was looking away at Lindsey's retreating back, and his blue eyes were red with unshed tears.

"That's my girl," House whispered, wiping at his face.

Wilson leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the scar on House's face. "That's our girl," he agreed.

Fin.


End file.
